Resident Evil: Western Outbreak
by DrkMgcn
Summary: Pre RE4. Leon's first mission for the government has him going out to a small town out West where he meets some familiar surroundings and some familiar faces. R&R.
1. Prologue

Raccoon City: A humble little burg out in Middle America nestled between spacious mountains and a lush forest. Shame that a nuclear disaster ended up wiping it out of existence. The Umbrella Corporation claimed it to be a problem at the nuclear power plant that caused the imminent destruction of the city. Others claimed it to be the work of a strategic air strike by the corporation itself to "sterilize" a viral outbreak that they caused to "further the betterment of mankind." The U.S. government decided to step in.

All gathered evidence of the corporation's shady dealings had been found, delivered to the President himself by the remaining members of the Raccoon branch of S.T.A.R.S., an organization within local police departments to give aid in situations not necessarily within the police's jurisdiction. The evidence consisted of testimonies from Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, Rebecca Chambers, and Barry Burton. But it wasn't enough to declare Umbrella a threat to world security. Other testimony came from R.P.D. rookie Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield, who were on hand to verify some of Jill's story.

With the Umbrella Corporation ousted from its position as a pharmaceutical powerhouse, they simply faded into obscurity once their stock prices plummeted to an all-time low. Each of the survivors of Umbrella's dealings eventually went their separate ways, and were given a semblance of their old lives back, but memories of old still plague them.

Leon Kennedy had just completed his Special Forces training. After Umbrella went down in flames, the government gave him a job in protecting the President and his family. Although the job made him seem to be a big bad bodyguard, he liked it. As far as he knew, he didn't need to shoot anymore zombies, mutant dogs, or creatures that stood over seven feet tall with long, serrated claws. It would be a while until he got assigned to protect the President, his superiors didn't want him to slack off, and they assigned him to investigate a small town out in the mid-West.


	2. Mission

The almost six-foot Leon had been waiting in the airport for nearly two hours, trying his best not to bring attention to himself. Easier said than done, with his dirtied brown leather jacket, combat boots, Stetson, and worn jeans, when being surrounded by men and women in business suits at five in the morning.

_Next time I get a job like this, I'm wearing sneakers,_ Leon thinks to himself, his boots causing his feet to sweat. He absently brushes his long bangs out of his eyes, taking in the environment around him. Leon feels a tug at his pant leg and looks down at a little girl in a blue dress with the blondest hair and bluest eyes he'd ever seen.

"Are you a cowboy?" the girl asks, clutching a doll in her hands.

"Something like that," Leon answers curtly. "There's a disturbance at the ranch, and I need to do something about it."

"I have to go now, Mr. Cowboy. Mommy said I have to be ready to fly with her in a few minutes." She walks away and comes up to a woman in a black business suit. She tugs on her skirt and the woman picks her up.

"Interesting kid," Leon mutters, impatiently waiting for his flight number. "Claire was right. I shoulda brought a book."

Jill Valentine gazed out from her windshield at the mountainous landscape before her. She drums her long slender fingers on the steering wheel, while her other hand steers the rental truck she got since leaving Dallas. A truck wasn't normally her speed, but where she was going, she needed to look the part.

_Tube tops and miniskirts aren't gonna help with this one,_ she thinks to herself, remembering the outfit she wore in her last adventure in Raccoon City. Because of it, she got ridiculed by Chris Redfield, and wanted to know why she didn't wear her S.T.A.R.S. uniform. To which she replied, "Too many bad memories."

"_It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine…_" R.E.M. front man Michael Stipe sings from the truck's radio.

Jill changes the station. Until the Raccoon City incident, she liked it, but apocalyptic songs just didn't seem all that appealing to her anymore. _Not after you've survived a nuclear strike, they don't. _The sun overhead streams into the truck's windows, causing Jill to grab her sunglasses on the dash. Technically, they weren't hers, but the previous owner, a Captain Albert Wesker, wasn't much of a position to argue over his missing property. _Unless he decided to cheat death again, _Jill wonders.

Her reddish-brown hair gets blown back by the A/C, as her mind quietly thinks back to the mansion that started this whole event of Umbrella's viral weaponry.

Leon found himself completely bored on his plane trip. Everyone else on the plane were asleep and snoring as if there were no tomorrow. Leon couldn't sleep, having slept for twelve hours the previous day. His mind was active, alert, and itching for action. Good thing there wasn't anyone else next to him, or else he'd really lose it. He impatiently taps his foot in rhythm to the snoring of the gentleman in front of his seat. Staring out the window was out of the question, for it intensified his feeling of isolation and boredom.

"I shoulda brought a book," Leon mutters. "Three hour flights and me just don't mix."

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking," sparks the P.A. system. "I'm sorry to inform you, but we are expected to hit some major turbulence in the next half hour that will extend our flight time. Bear with us as this passes. Thank you."

Leon's eye began to twitch.

The desert winds whip past the sleepy little town that would most typify the kind of environment city folk would consider to be the Deep South or Old West. A red Ford F-150 pulls through the small town. Jill surveys the area from her former commanding officer's dark tinted shades, analyzing placement of the buildings and the spacious road she's traveling on.

"And I thought Raccoon was out in the middle of nowhere," Jill ponders.

There was nobody outside. No other cars on the road, at least not ones driving. As much as Jill hated the term, the town was a literal ghost town. She pulls the truck into a parking lot across the street from a small motel. She gets out, regretting that she decided not to wear something more suited to the heat than to blend in. A long sleeve flannel shirt, cowboy boots, and denim jeans were definitely not the way to go out here.

"You coulda gone for the Daisy Duke shorts, but no, you wanted to look like a bona fide cowgirl," Jill chastises herself. She wipes some sweat off her brow and ties her hair back. "You got a job to do here, Valentine. You can complain later."

After a tumultuous flight, Leon finally touched down at a rural airport in the middle of nowhere. All he had with him were the clothes on his back so he could bypass the whole baggage claim experience. He walks out from the terminal to the ground transportation area. A man dressed in a slick black business suit stands perfectly erect at the exit to the airport. Leon walks slightly past him.

"Somebody set us up the bomb," the business suit man says.

"We get signal," Leon replies.

"Main screen turn on."

"How are you gentlemen. All your base are belong to us."

"Move Zig."

Leon and the business man exit the airport. They get to the parking garage where another man dressed in a similar manner to the first is leaning against a black BMW with a sleek finish. Leon gets in the back and the two business men sit up front. The BMW roars to life and drives out of the parking garage. Once out on the street, and away from the airport, the man Leon encountered in the airport turns around.

"Agent Kennedy, I am Agent Johnson," the first business man says, "and this is Agent Thompson." He points to the other man at the wheel of the car.

"Not your real names I take it?" Leon inquires.

"Got that right," Johnson replies. "We have reports of some strange activity in these parts, and we felt it was right up your territory."

"I'm listening."

"We have a secret training facility for our top government agents and we recently lost contact with it. Their last transmission said something about strange creatures had infiltrated the base and were running rampant."

"Sounds serious," Leon says, now interested.

"It gets weirder," Thompson adds. "From the few security photos we could get, there were also some civilians dressed in Umbrella merchandise."

"You want me to find out what's going on, and keep it secret," Leon states. "Am I going in alone?"

"You got it, cowboy," Johnson says. "As far as the public knows, we're not here and the government ain't interested in this little speck of dirt. Here are your tools."

Johnson hands Leon a metallic briefcase. He opens it and finds a few road maps, a 9mm handgun, complete with laser-sight, extra clips, and a keycard.

"Don't lose that card," Thompson advises.

"That's your access to the facility and proof for your contact," Johnson explains. "You are to meet him at 1327 Pleasant Drive tomorrow afternoon."

"He's pretty paranoid, and he's come up with a password you'll need to give him anyway," Thompson adds. "He claims that the agent we send will have to know it, since it ties into the whole of Umbrella's conspiracy. Know what it is?"

"I have a pretty good idea what it is," Leon answers. "So, why exactly do we use poor English-translated video game phrases as passwords?"

The agents shrug and the rest of the trip continues in silence.


	3. Exploration

The motel Jill Valentine found herself in could not have better defined itself as ramshackle. The floor upon which she stood had missing boards and jagged chunks ripped out of it. She had to maneuver around the open spaces in the wood until she came to the front desk. She rings the bell twice. No answer. She looks around and sees a sign taped to the back wall.

"'Take key, leave cash, and go'," Jill reads. "Real friendly place." She walks around the desk and picks up a random room key. "867, now where is that?" She looks at the small layout map on the desk. "Second floor, third door on the left." She pulls out what cash she has and slams 40 on the desk. "That should cover it, if not, screw it."

With key in hand, Jill jumps over the desk and walks up the creaky stairs next to it. Her boots make the stairs wince even more than they already do. She quickly finds the room on the key and jabs it into the lock. With a turn to the left, Jill pries the door open. Not the most spacious motel room she's been in, but it's relatively better shape than the rest of the place.

"This could work," Jill praises. She pulls her left pant leg up, exposing a small handgun strapped to her shapely thigh.

She cocks the small firearm and surveys the room. More out of habit than anything, Jill decided she couldn't be too careful these days. _Being pursued by a hulking creature with a massive rocket launcher tended to do that,_ Jill thinks. The room checked clean…for now. Assured that there were no bogeymen or other people in the small room, Jill popped the clip out of her gun and set it down on the room's only table.

"Be paranoid later, Jilly," she says to herself. "Gotta get my 9mm out of the truck, and find a place that sells 16-gauge shotguns, if rumor is true."

The slick black BMW pulled up in front of an expansive hotel within an otherwise empty little city. Leon gets out, his newly acquired handgun holstered on his gun belt. He closes the back seat's door, as the driver side window rolls down.

"Remember, you are not an agent of the government's Special Forces, and if anyone asks, you're here celebrating your wedding anniversary," Thompson says.

"I don't have a fake wife," Leon replies.

"Not our problem, cowboy." Thompson rolls the window back up and drives away.

Leon watches the car drive away, having second thoughts about this mission. Among them being that he doesn't his way around and that his only way out just left him for dead.

_Wouldn't be the first time,_ Leon thinks, and heads into the hotel.

Grimy and dirty didn't begin to describe the place. Termite damage took care of the walls, the floors, and even the front desk. Leon steps carefully through the lobby, his hand firmly grasping the hilt of his gun. His nerves were on edge, being in similar buildings on his first and only day on the force. He gets to the front desk and rings the bell. No answer.

"Perfect," Leon says, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He jumps over the desk and snags a key at random. "5309" reads the display on the mass-produced key. Leon jumps the desk and his boots make a sickening crack in the wood.

"Not gonna do that again," Leon berates himself.

The former cop trudges through the hotel lobby and comes to a series of three elevators. Being overly cautious, Leon draws the 9mm and hits an "up" button. The middle door opens and Leon aims the gun into the small chamber. Nothing wrong, except the elevator has no floor.

"Stairs."

Leon races up the stairwell, making sure to put as little pressure as possible on the dilapidated steps for fear of breaking them. He gets to his desired floor before he realizes that he still has his gun out. Holstering it quickly, he approaches his room. He slides the key into the lock and gives it a quick turn. He gently turns the knob and easily tries to pry the door open, but the squeaky hinges do not comply. At that point, Leon boots the door in and draws his weapon.

"Now, this is just creepy," Leon mutters.

The hotel room is the complete opposite of the downstairs lobby. Plush carpeting adorns the floor, highly detailed paintings on the walls, a California king bed, and a widescreen TV mounted into the wall. Leon checks out the bathroom for anything unusual, but the bright shine from its pristine linoleum floor told him all he needed to know.

"This place is creepier than that mansion Chris and Jill keep talking about," Leon says.

Jill, armed with her Beretta 9mm, strode down the empty streets of the small town. No sound seemed to penetrate the area. No sound of birds, or dogs, which made Jill slightly grateful about this place. She didn't hate dogs, but after what she'd been through, cats seemed to be more appealing. The heels of her boots clunk on the hard street, echoing off the surrounding buildings. She stops for a minute to swipe the sweat off her face.

"Stupid flannel," she declares. "If I ever meet the guy who made this crap, I'm gonna shoot him in the head." Jill rolls up the sleeves, exposing her forearms. "This'll do until I find a better shirt."

The former S.T.A.R.S. member continues down the street, her Beretta scanning the surrounding area. She stops suddenly and notices a clothing store to her left.

Jill looks skyward and says, "Thank you, God."

She opens the door and takes a quick look inside. No lights, which meant no power, and no power meant no employees.

"You did this once, so why this be any different?" Jill asks herself.

She wanders through the store and comes to the fuse box located near the back. She opens it up and hits a few breakers until the store lights up. Jill looks around with an expression that reads, "Not bad."

Jill wasn't much for dressing or undressing in public, but this one time she didn't mind. She pulls the red flannel shirt off and throws it into the nearest trashcan. Her smooth white skin of her chest and stomach come into contact with the low-running A/C in the building. She adjusts her sport bra before snagging a short-sleeve navy blue shirt. She wasn't ashamed of her figure, but didn't like the attention she sometimes got with it depending on how she dressed that day. Although her S.T.A.R.S. uniform fit her to a "T," it sometimes caused other people to gawk at her because of what the uniform accentuated.

_I'm one of the few people that I know that could carry off that look,_ Jill pondered to herself.

She slips the boots off and snags a pair of socks off a rack. With her sweaty feet now covered, Jill rubs the aching muscles in her feet. She liked to wear boots, but aches and pains drew the line between fashion and function. She spots a pair of Nikes in her size and laces up. In this forsaken desert town, denim was definitely not the way to go, but after spending most of her remaining money on them, Jill didn't think it was right to just get rid of her stylish jeans.

"A place like this has gotta have a pair of scissors," Jill mutters. She checks the check-out desk, but nothing there. "You idiot," Jill chastises herself, remembering the combat knife strapped to one of her thighs.

She unsheathes it from the leg opposite of where her smaller gun is fastened and cuts the denim just below her knees. The torn pieces are then thrown into the same trashcan that occupied her flannel shirt.

"Blue's always my color," Jill sings in triumph. "I hope no one else heard that."

Jill absently wiped away the sweat that accumulated on her legs, and walked out of the store. As soon as she turned the corner, the door into the storage room began to shudder as if something was trying to get out.

Leon spent the better part of a half hour convincing himself that nothing was wrong with the hotel, but with something else in the town. After extensively checking his briefcase, Leon found a combat knife and a shoulder sheath hidden in a false bottom. He wraps the sheath around his left shoulder and fixes the knife in place. He throws his jacket on the bed, along with the Stetson, and draws his gun. He aims the sight at the green lamp next to the extra-large king bed. He adjusts the laser until it becomes small enough not to be noticed right away, but still large enough to be seen by the gun's user.

"I'd've preferred a Punisher, but beggars can't be choosers," Leon mutters.

He holsters the gun and pulls out his cell phone from the jacket's inner pocket. He flips it open and turns it on. Once its little load-up animation is done, the words NO SIGNAL flash on the main display.

"Great, it _is_ just like Raccoon." Leon turns the phone off and puts his jacket back on. "You got nothin' better to do until tomorrow, Leonardo, so what fun can you have here?"

Jill sauntered down the street, showing off her legs to a crowd that didn't exist. Had there been an actual crowd, she wouldn't be swaying her hips as she traveled down the otherwise empty street. Jill wasn't a fan of exposing skin, particularly her own in a possible life or death situation.

_But hey, that didn't stop Claire from running around the city in a pair of bike shorts,_ Jill remembers, thinking of Chris Redfield's sister.

She reached her truck and climbed into the cab. She inserts the drive key and turns, but the engine only grinds. She tries again and the grinding increases. Frustrated, Jill climbs out and pops the hood. Steam arises from the overheated engine block.

"'Ma'am, would you like us to replace the coolant in your right purdy vehicle?'" Jill asks herself, imitating the redneck gas station attendant she met on her last fuel up.

"'Why no, kind sir, I don't expect little ol' me to be needin' the services of such a thing'," Jill replies, imitating the accent of a stereotypical Southern Belle.

She then closes the hood, goes inside the truck, and places her head on the steering wheel. A bigger woman would have taken this time to get over it and find a gas station. Unfortunately, Jill wasn't that kind of woman at this time. She smashes her fists on the wheel and verbally abuses the truck, and she didn't care who heard. Satisfied after three minutes of berating the defenseless vehicle, she calmly gets out, and tries to find a gas station.

"When I need a getaway vehicle, I'm gonna need to depend on it," Jill reminds herself.

Leon's walk through the city couldn't be more uneventful. The wind died down, the echo of his boots echoed eerily off the buildings, and his stomach growling didn't help much.

"'Excuse me, sir, but would you like to try our continental breakfast on this flight?'" Leon asks himself, imitating the female flight attendant's Southern drawl.

"'Why no, thank you, ma'am, because I'm the world's biggest idiot, about to be left for dead in an empty town by the government'," Leon replies, making his voice sound more Texan. "God, I'd kill for a cheeseburger!"

The government agent continues to walk down the empty road, taking note of the structures around him. He didn't understand that if there was no one here, then who was taking care of the buildings. Everything was pristine and orderly, as if the mayor had a bad case of OCD, and wanted the town to always be this neat. An opened up clothing store grabbed Leon's attention.

"Might be somebody else here," Leon mutters.

Nothing terribly exciting about the place, other than the absence of the cowboy stuff he was expecting. Leon walks into the store and immediately throws his standard-issue combat boots to the floor, his socks stained with sweat. He snags a pair of black sneakers off one of the shelves and slips them on his aching feet.

"Next time get boots that fit," Leon chastises. "You coulda gone with the cowboy boots but no, you wanted to look like a commando."

A shuffling noise grabs his attention. Leon pulls out his 9mm and slowly approaches the store's storage room. He raises the gun and kicks the door in. A dark body rises out of the shadow of the unlit room. It stumbles forward, hands outstretched. Its missing jaw and absent right eye was all Leon needed to know.

"Aaah, zombie," Leon says, not the least bit scared. Without a second thought he aims at the creature's head and pulls the trigger. The zombie's skull bursts into small fragments and chunks of brain matter splat on the ground. It falls to the ground with a sickening thud.

"That was easy." Leon holsters the gun and walks away, as the creature rises again.

The noise of its stumbling feet immediately catches his attention. He turns; gun aimed, and fires until the zombie's head falls from its neck. For good measure, he stomps the head into the floor with a satisfying crunch.

Jill's attention was diverted from her quest to find a gas station when she heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire echoing through the empty town. She draws her Beretta, should whoever did the firing find her. After a few tense moments, she holsters the gun and continues on her way. Jill comes across a run down, beat-up gas station, much like the one she saw in Raccoon City. According to Chris Redfield's sister, Claire, a truck driver got bit by an infected person and crashed into it. She shakes the memory out; since it was right around the time she encountered the hulking creature known as Nemesis.

She swaggers into the gas station's concession store, finding it to be as every other gas station she's ever been to in America: grimy, greasy, and not a descent place to sit. Jill scours the small store, her sneakers making a strange crunching sound on the sticky floor. She finds a couple plastic containers of engine coolant, but their contents were either drained or in puddles at the base of the display.

"Looks like I'm not getting out here anytime soon," Jill says. "Well, I've been in worse situations than this." Her stomach growls in annoyance. "May as well see if this dump has any food." The last thing Jill ate was a BLT two hours before she rented her truck, and that was well over 12 hours ago.

The former member of S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team searches through the stores displays of potato chips and other various snack foods. Plastic bags were ripped apart, food was crushed into the sticky substance that coated the floor, and the stench of moldy bread filled the air.

"On second thought, I need a Coke," Jill resolves. Noticing that the only thing in the small store that was intact were the fridges for the sodas, Jill opens one up and snags a C2. "You coulda stayed with diet, but no, you wanted to go with half the carbs and calories."

She pops the top off and is about ready to drink when she noticed that the hissing sound a soda bottle makes when opened is absent. She turns it upside down and the half-calorie, half-carb Coke slowly oozes to the floor, making a small caramelized puddle.

"This is gonna be a long day."

A stumbling noise breaks Jill out of her disappointment about not getting a drink. She draws her gun and gingerly steps through the store. She comes to a door and slowly opens it. Beyond it is a small sit-down restaurant that has seen better days. Mold and mildew piled up on the floor, exposed boards in the wall, and most of the tables were smashed into the floor. The stumbling noise comes again, and Jill looks over the counter.

A creature that used to be a woman named Doris rises over the counter. Sections of the flesh from her face were missing, along with a part of her jaw. Without being fazed by the sight before her, Jill raises the Beretta, takes aim, and fires. Doris' head explodes, cascading a shower of blood and brain matter. When she staggered back and attempted to climb over the counter was when Jill fired a second shot that blew off a chunk on the left side of Doris' skull. A third shot from the Beretta caused Doris to stumble back and land her head into the deep fryer just off to the left of the counter.

The stench of rotten, fried flesh mingled with stale French fries, causing Jill to cover her face and mouth. She makes a sweep with the gun, expecting possible reinforcements, but none came. That's when she heard some running footsteps heading towards the gas station and burst through the back.


	4. Encounter

Drawn to the sound of gunshots, Leon raced to find the source. He found it to be a run-down, possibly abandoned, gas station. He made a quick turn, going around the back. He charges through the back room, and into the rear of the station. With his gun raised, he finds himself face to face with a woman in blue with a Beretta aimed right in his face.

The woman didn't flinch, even having a similar weapon aimed just below her left eye. After a few tense moments, they slowly came to realization: no zombie had the capacity to wield a firearm, much less aim it.

"Jill?" Leon asks.

"Leon?" Jill asks.

They slowly holstered their weapons and embraced each other in a tight hug. Seeing another human in a place so desolate seemed to bring out emotions they would normally keep hidden. It suddenly got uncomfortable when Leon could feel Jill's chest press against his and Jill could feel Leon's well-toned abs and chest against her body. They separate, slightly blushing.

"It's been a while," Jill squeaks.

"Uh…yeah, it has," Leon replies with a slight crack in his voice.

The two nosily clear their throats.

"So, what brings a not-so-nice guy like you out to a place like this?" Jill asks; hand on her hip with a slight eyebrow raise.

"I am Government Man, sent by the government. The government has sent me," Leon replies in a robotic voice. Jill giggles a bit, the first genuinely funny thing she's experienced in a long time. "So, Mistress of Lock-picking, what brings such a fine beauty, such as yourself, to the middle of nowhere?"

"With you here, my reasoning for being here has been confirmed," Jill replies. "The team heard that the government was being all hush-hush about a training facility for their top agents and lost contact with it. I was sent out here to find out if it was true, and if the foul play they experienced was the result of a particular pharmaceutical company."

"Looks like it. I had to pump a couple shots into a Romero extra back at a clothing store."

"That was you? Thank God! I had to put down Doris over there, and she's the reason why this place smells like stale fries and rotten hamburger."

"To be honest, Jill, I'm glad you're here. Makes my first assignment seem more bearable."

The two share a moment of understanding and respect for each other. Jill had to survive a mansion infested with the undead and contend with a rocket launcher carrying monster that may not have been human a month later; Leon had to endure a zombie infested city on the first day on the Raccoon City Police Department and survive on an ocean liner crawling with the reanimated crew and passengers. The moment is lost when their stomachs growl in protest.

"Know any place to eat around here that's no like this?" Leon asks.

"Guess we'll find out," Jill answers.


	5. Interlude

A glowing screen displayed a series of photographs before a man hidden in shadow. His eyes glaze over the various images, several of the same people but with slight differences in hair and clothing. He taps at the armrest of his immaculate chair, studying them. He would get his chance to kill them yet, but he had to wait for the opportune moment.

Two images come to the forefront of the vast sea of digitized scans: a woman and a man in their early 20s. The woman has short, reddish brown hair with piercing blue eyes. The man has a darker shade of red hair with a pair of blue eyes that seemed to emit a quiet intensity even through the monitor. The shadowed man hits a button on his chair and the background images fade to black and the foreground displays shrink and set off the side of the impressive monitor.

A split-screen video feed pops up. The woman is shown in a fetching outfit consisting of a tube top and miniskirt, being chased by a creature carrying a massive weapon. The other video feed depicts the man dressed in a police uniform, shooting at a creature with a bulging eye coming out its chest. The images are dated the day before the Raccoon City explosion.

"So, they survived," the man mutters to himself. "Where are they?"

A green-lit map pops up and a red dot appears out in the Midwest of the United States. The man steeples his hands and drums his fingers against each other.

"Mr. Kennedy, Ms. Valentine…it's almost too perfect. Soon, one of you will come for me, and I shall break you."

The man cocks his head to the left. As if on cue, a door opens, flooding the room with a white light. A mountain of man enters, dressed in a dark blue coat and heavy boots. He's bald save for the thick beard around his chin. An eerie light emanates from one of his eyes.

"Forgive the intrusion, milord," the bearded man says. "Everything is on schedule, however there is a complication."

"Sera," the shadow man replies, much to the surprise of the bearded man. "I know these things, my dear chief. Soon, Mr. Sera will play into our hands, but not just yet. Have you located the girl?"

"Yes, milord."

"Good. Any other news you wish to report?"

"The creature of the deep grows hungry."

"And he shall be fed soon enough, but don't feed him the converts, only those who can't be turned."

The bearded man bows and leaves the room, closing the door behind him. A shadowed figure in a red robe with black trim sets down besides the shadowed man. The robed figure looks to the man, as if speaking to him without words.

"Don't worry about him," the man in shadow says. "His usefulness will end soon enough. After all, whoever comes has to go through him before they can get to me." The robed figure vanishes in silence. "And will have to go through you and your dwarf of a master before confronting me," he adds with disdain.


	6. Contact

After scouring the remnants of the gas station for signs of food, life, or otherwise, Jill and Leon decided to call it quits. They were desperate for food, but not desperate enough to see what laid in the decomposing restaurant. After a fifteen minute hike through the empty streets, they found a restaurant. It was in relatively good shape, and the address immediately caught Leon's attention: 1327 Pleasant Drive.

"My contact holds up in a pizza place," Leon mutters.

"Well, I don't think we can wait a day to meet this guy," Jill says. "So what, we just go in?"

"I guess. Never did this undercover, cloak and dagger stuff before."

"You get used to it."

Leon and Jill move cautiously up to the restaurant, Uncle Buck's Pizza Paradise emblazoned on the front glass. Jill and Leon take flanking positions around the doorframe. With a quick nod to each other, Leon opens the door and Jill aims her gun into the darkened restaurant. Nerves on edge, they enter the pizza place. Leon makes a sweeping motion with his gun, Jill following close behind. Suddenly, a red dot appears on Leon's forehead.

"Who are you! What do you want!" yells a male voice from the other side of the restaurant. The audible sound of a high-powered rifle being cocked could be heard as the man made his threat.

"Don't shoot! I'm a human!" Leon pleads, in a similar manner he did when he ran into a gun shop in Raccoon.

The lights in the place click on, revealing a man in torn fatigues with a semi-auto rifle against his shoulder. He lowers the weapon, as do Jill and Leon.

"Wasn't expecting you 'til tomorrow," the camouflaged man says. "But guess it's better to be early than dead."

Leon pulls out a keycard in the left pocket of his jacket. The army guy gives it a once over and turns the sight of his rifle off.

"Sergeant Hank Kendo, but you call me…" the man in green starts, before removing a pair of contacts that changed his naturaleye color from blueto dark green. "Billy Coen," he finishes, with his natural deep, husky voice. He then rips off a sleeve of his uniform, exposing a tribal tattoo runs the length of his arm.

"The infamous Billy Coen," Jill states. "Rebecca said you were dead but we didn't believe her."

"I figured as much," Billy replies. "You must be Jill. Becky said you're pretty handy with a lock."

"Comes from having a dad who was a professional thief."

"I see." Billy sticks his hand out and Leon shakes it. "Sorry about the rifle, but you were in the same situation before."

"Yeah, except looking down the end of a sawed-off shotgun," Leon replies. "How'd you know that?"

"Umbrella likes to keep taps on everything that went on in Raccoon City," Billy explains. "Numerous security cameras in the gun shop, for example."

"What's going on?" Jill asks.

"Trouble," Billy simply stated.

Minutes ticked away in tense silence. Three people bound to the Umbrella Corporation's sick experiments or influence, one way or another. Billy was framed for the murder of 23 people on a mission in Africa and was bound to be executed, until his transport got derailed by _something _and ran into Rebecca Chambers of S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team. They survived a zombie train and Umbrella training facility. Afterwards, Rebecca joined what was left of S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team, consisting of Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, and Barry Burton, in the infamous mansion the team was forced to hold up in and endure.

The three helped themselves to the pizza supplies in the restaurant. After eating their fill of three large deep dish pizzas, Jill and Leon wanted answers.

"So, what happened?" Jill asks.

"It started out pretty routine," Billy explains. "Maintain an underground training facility for the government's top agents and military soldiers. Then one day, all hell broke loose. We didn't know where they came from or how they got here, but they came. Men, women, children, even a few dogs. We held them off as best we could, but our defenses didn't hold. I was one of the lucky ones who got out and, asfar as I know,I'm the only one who got out. The others were quickly infected and had to be put down."

"These things don't sound like your average creature of the undead," Leon says.

"That's the weird thing. You fire at the damn thing's head, and they'll get up again." Billy shudders to make his point.

"Happened to me too," Jill says. "I pumped a couple shots into this woman's head and she wouldn't go down under her head was fried in oil."

"I blew a guy's head off and crushed for good measure," Leon adds. "Where's the facility?"

"Under the city, but the tricky part is trying to get to it." Billy picks up his rifle and gives it a quick cock. "Not too many of those thingstrek to the surface during the day, but night is a different story."

"I think we're gonna need more guns," Jill states. "Handguns and a high-powered rifle won't get us very far."

"Might be a bit of problem, cowgirl, and you really don't wanna hear it," Billy says.

"Let me guess: There's no gun shop here and the only weapons in this godforsaken place are in the facility," Leon says.

"You got it."

Leon and Jill look at each other. "Typical," they both sigh.


	7. Planning

Night had fallen on the small Western town. To their completely non-surprise, Jill, Leon, and Billy watched droves of creatures that were once men and women walk the streets. The three were perched on the roof of the small police station. Billy was partially right about the absence of guns in the town, but the only weapons found were police batons, stun guns, and the occasional pepper spray bottle. Any guns found had no ammo and not a single box of shells to be found.

They watched the zombies roam through the streets, looking for anything. Bill took point with the rifle, scanning the area. Minutes felt like hours as the three watched the horde stumble through the town.

Jill tugs on Billy's arm. "So, who exactly does a wanted felon get a job for the military?" she asks.

"I have my good buddy Redfield to thank for that," Billy answers, his scope still aimed at the zombie army.

"Redfield? As in Chris Redfield?" Jill inquires.

"Yep, best friends too. Of course he joined the Air Force and I joined the Military, but we kept in touch, even through me getting convicted of murder. That's how he got court-martialed, y'know. Tried to stick up for me."

"I didn't know that," Jill admits.

"So, how'd you two meet?" Billy asks Leon.

"Raccoon City," they both answer.

"I ran into her in a back alley, and she was white as a sheet," Leon says.

"You're one to talk, Mr. I-Smell-Like-a-Sewer," Jill childishly retorts.

Billy looks at Leon weirdly.

"I blew up an alligator in a sewer pipe," the former cop explains. Billy nods in understanding.

"So, we're not gonna fight them all…are we?" Jill asks, growing anxious at the massive horde of undead flooding the streets.

"We won't have to, if we do it right," Billy explains. "We get down to the facility, engage its auto defenses and hold out till dawn. They come back underground, and we got 'em."

"I take it you guys don't activate them on a daily basis," Leon states.

"Only in case of lock down emergencies." Billy makes a sweeping motion with the rifle. "The only problem would be trying to get past them all and make it into the main tunnel."

"Where is it?" Jill asks.

"Five blocks up, three blocks right, down the fourth building, and the first manhole you see," Billy answers curtly. "Think we can make it?"

"Probably not, but we've all been in situations like this before," Leon replies. "Now, how do you get a bunch of undead creatures to suddenly go away?"

"You give 'em food," Jill answers.

The zombie horde that flooded the town found themselves drawn to a single area. They could detect the smell of fresh meat, but couldn't tell where it was coming from. Then the smell of cooking meat got their attention. Food to eat without the hassle of trying to hunt it down. They were drawn to the remnants of a police station, the smell of burning flesh and meat too much to resist.

On a pyre were two headless bodies impaled through a series of desks and garbage. The zombies didn't care for it meant food. Several of the first to try and eat the offered meat burst into flames, increasing the intensity of the intoxicating aroma. The stench of burning flesh became overpowering and flooded out of the station, drawing in more undead victims.

The fire spread and engulfed the exposed wood of the station. The small bonfire became a massive barbecue; the smell of burnt flesh flooded the remnants of the small town. The undead population stormed for the smell, unaware of three fresh morsels watching them.

"Nice work, Ms. Valentine," Leon says in a polite voice.

"Why thank you, Mr. Kennedy," Jill returns, in an equal polite voice, doing a mock curtsy. They both laugh.

"You guys done?" Billy asks impatiently.

Jill and Leon look at each other, and then unenthusiastically reply, "Yeah."

Leaving behind the smoldering remains of the raided police station, the three Umbrella survivors run through the streets. With their weapons at the ready, they weren't taking any chances should their plan be a bust. After traveling down five blocks, they take a right and run another three blocks. Billy was quite impressed that Jill and Leon were keeping pace. If things were different, they'd all probably been in the Military together, but that was speculation for another time.

They come to a row of buildings and carefully navigate through them. Coming to the fourth, Jill notices the manhole. Through a round of rock-paper-scissors, Leon was elected to be the one to open it. He slides two steel poles out of the cover and tosses them to the side. Carefully, he grabs the manhole cover and eases it off the ground. With a grunt and sigh of effort, Leon gently puts it down on the ground. If there was one thing they all knew it was loud noises would attract the undead.

"See anything?" Billy whispers to Jill.

"No," she whispers back. She turns to Leon. "How 'bout you?"

"Nada," Leon replies. "What are the chances that there's something bigger and badder than a zombie down there?"

"Very high," Billy and Jill answer.

"Thought so. Who's goin' first?"

"I have the bigger gun, so I guess that means me," Billy answers. He slings the rifle over his back and begins the climb down the hole.

"Be careful," Jill says. Leon and Billy stare at her. "What?"

"That phrase has lost all meaning to me," Leon answers.

"Same here," Billy grunts. He slides down the rest of the way and his boots make an audible splash on the concrete tunnel below. "All right, come on down! It's safe…for now."


	8. Tunnels

Three laser sights illuminated the darkness. Since neither one of them carried a flashlight, they were all equally worried about shooting each other.

"Next time I'm bringin' a flashlight no matter what," Leon says.

"Amen, brother," Billy says. "Anybody got a smoke?"

"Got a lighter," Jill says, "but it's out of fluid."

"Burned too many zombies with it?" Leon asks.

"Exactly!" Jill exclaims.

"Billy, is there a light switch around here or what?" Leon asks.

"There should be a fuse box somewhere," he replies. Suddenly, the lights in the tunnel turn on. "Freaky."

"Someone had to turn them on," Jill says.

"Yeah, and let's hope it doesn't like human flesh," Leon adds. "Come on!"

They race down the tunnel, following the lines of electrical wiring. They come to a stop when they see an opened fuse box and a body lying against the tunnel's wall. Covered in blood, it was easy to see the same fatigues Billy wore, and fit for a woman. The woman's face has several cuts and gashes, along with a few bite marks along her neck. Her left arm hung loosely at her side, and her right hand was holding onto the fuse box. Her blonde hair was stained with a nasty black fluid and her head hung loosely from her neck.

Leon looks to Billy. "Friend of yours?"

"Yeah, she was. Melissa Crawford, head of security. Looks like she'll be turnin' soon." Billy mutters a small prayer.

"Think she's still alive?" Leon asks Jill.

"Probably not, but just to be sure…" she replies grimly.

They all nod to each other and ready their weapons. Waiting intently for something to happen, they noticed something. A handgun was in her left hand and hole in the side of her head.

"So what do you think happened, Matlock?" Billy asks Leon.

"She started to turn and drew her gun and then heard us," Leon explains. "She hit the box and waited, but it was too late and did the dirty deed herself."

"Check for ammo?" Jill offers.

The guys look at each other and say, "Yeah."

Nothing much could be found on Melissa Crawford's body. Some handgun clips and a keycard that could prove useful, but no extra weapons beyond that. They continued down the tunnel in silence, trying to make as little noise as possible. Nothing else stood out in the sewer line, other than the roving cameras and deactivated robot guns.

Catching Jill's puzzled look at the tunnel-mounted weapons, Billy says, "2500E Security Cannons. Equipped with high-powered motion sensors, these babies will lay waste to anything that gets too close."

"That's the plan, right?" Leon asks hypothetically. "We activate these things, and those things get out of the sun and head for us. Suddenly, the tunnel fills up with their bodies and shells."

"Just like _Aliens_," Jill adds. "My favorite movie."

"I liked _Predator_ better," Billy says.

After traversing the tunnel for the better part of fifteen minutes, they came to a steel door that takes up the entire tunnel. Finding a keycard slot, Billy slides Melissa's card/ID tag through it. Its red light turns green and the door slides into the wall on squeaky hinges. After the door came a series of tunnels.

"Which way, Billy?" Leon asks.

"I don't know," Billy admits.

"How could you not know!" Jill shouts at him. "You work here!"

"Yeah, but we were sent in blindfolded on trucks!" Billy defends. "When the crap hit the fan, I ran down a tunnel and I don't remember which tunnel I took."

Leon and Jill look at each other and mutter, "Yeah, that's a good reason. Yeah, I believe that. It's happened to me before."

"We cool?" Billy asks.

"Yeah, we're cool," Leon answers. "So, we each take a tunnel and hope for the best?"

"Yep," Jill replies.

"Typical," Billy adds.

Jill decided to take the third tunnel from the right, mainly because Leon and Billy took the other two from the right. That left three tunnels unchecked, but that didn't matter yet. With their luck, at some point the tunnels would all intersect. The tunnel didn't offer much light, but that didn't matter to Jill. When facing a nightmarish setting at night, you tended to see better in the dark. At least, that's what she told herself. She didn't want to admit it to the others, but ever since the mansion incident, Jill developed a slight fear of enclosed, dark places.

"Happy place, happy place, happy place…" she muttered to herself, traveling down the tunnel in the half-crouched stance she adopted in the last 24 hours before Raccoon City became a smoking crater.

Feeling along the wall with her free hand, Jill aimed her Beretta straight ahead. Her slender hand comes across a metal box mounted into the wall. Her eyes adjust in the dark and the box reads "FIREPOWER" in bold red letters. Jill grins evilly and opens the box. Resting comfortably inside was a Magnum, one of the most powerful handguns available.

"Won't Barry be jealous," Jill wonders. She snags the Magnum and checks its ammo supply. Six shots. She digs in the box and finds some extra rounds. "We upgrade from six to ten. Better make 'em count."

Jill takes some of the slack out her belt, making it hang loosely on her hips. She slides the Magnum between her left hip and the loose belt. With a quick jerk, she tightens the belt and secures the Magnum.

"Gotta find a holster for this thing," Jill mutters to herself.

Taking up her half-crouched walk again, Jill walks down the tunnel with a bit more confidence. After all, what sane person would mess with a woman carrying a weapon found in Dirty Harry's gun safe?

Billy's rifle swept the entire length of the tunnel as he made his way through it. The only illumination found was the red laser sight attached to high-powered weapon. Billy never got a chance to test it out on the zombie horde, so saying he was on edge was an understatement. His combat boots crunch various debris on the ground, possibly from the masonry being chipped from incoming gunfire.

A clicking sound suddenly draws Billy's attention to his surroundings. He stops moving and readies his rifle. His eyes dart around the tunnel, trying to focus in the absence of light. Then, he saw it! A frog-like creature drops out of the shadows. From what Billy could see, its skin was as red as a tender steak and jagged teeth. Its snake-like tongue darts at the ex-Marine.

Billy quickly gets out of the way and takes aim with his rifle. He aims what he presumes to be its head and fires. The high-powered shell blows out a chunk on the side of its bulbous cranium. The creature shrieks in pain and its jaws close tightly enough to sever its tongue. Knowing that alone won't be enough to stop it, Billy readies his second shot. He fires at the other side of the thing's head and pulls the trigger. A bigger chunk of the thing's head explodes onto the tunnel's walls.

"Had enough?" Billy taunts. "No? All right, have it your way!"

He aims again and fires between where its eyes were supposed to be. The remaining chunks of its brain matter splatter out of its head. The creature staggers back and collapses to the floor. Not taking any chances, Billy unsheathes his knife and approaches the creature. Ready for anything, aims the gun at the thing's body as he hacks away at the creature's neck. Satisfied that the thing's head is separate from its body, Billy continues on his way.

"'And miles to go before I sleep'," Billy recites.

Leon could hear gunshots reverberate in the air. From the sound of it, odds are they came from Billy. His handgun makes a sweeping motion across the tunnel, making sure that nothing took him by surprise. He suddenly stops, hearing something. If he was still that rookie cop from Raccoon, Leon would have run straight through, but Leon the government agent had a different thought process. His eyes narrow, both hands on the gun, and he cautiously walks.

"Keep your cool, Leon," he mutters to himself. "I have to stop talking to myself."

A loud groaning noise snaps Leon's attention to the tunnel's walls. Some _thing _removes itself from the shadows cast on the wall. Crouching at the knees, the thing looked like a green version of the licker he encountered in the remains of the Raccoon Police Station, except this thing has eyes, scales, and spikes out of its back.

"What are you waiting for?" Leon taunts coolly. "You're here for a reason, ain't ya?"

To answer his question, the creature growls and charges. Not phased in the least, Leon takes aim with his gun and fires into the creature's right eye. It stumbles back, grabbing at the unnatural hole in its head. It growls in frustration and hunches back on its hind legs.

"Bring it on, you ugly puke!" Leon shouts.

The creature roars and charges, its clawed feet making slash marks in the solid concrete on which it stood. Leon lowers the gun and waits. The creature comes within striking range and thrusts its clawed hand Leon. He sidesteps the creature, unsheathes his knife, and impales it through the creature's head.

Blood rushes out of the thing's empty eye socket. With a vicious grunt, Leon removes the knife and draws his gun. With no hesitation, he aims for the thing's neck and fires. The creature's head tilts to one side and a second shot removes the creature's head entirely from its body.


	9. Elevator

Jill felt tired from the neck down. Her feet ached, her thighs were burning, and her shirt was stained with her sweat. She didn't know how much she sweated but she knew it would be enough to cause Leon and Billy to stare at her.

"The only girl in the group, as usual," Jill mutters. "Curse my fabulous body and looks! I _really_ need to stop talking to myself."

A red light quickly caught Jill's attention. With renewed enthusiasm, she raced down the otherwise dark tunnel. She skids to a stop when she sees the light is part of a scanner set into another steel door. She looks at the scanner, noting that it only takes a keycard. Jill raises the Beretta and fires at it. The bullet impacts the plastic coating, but otherwise no change.

"Great. Just great." Jill brandishes her knife. "If that girl from that _Resident Evil_ movie can do this, why can't I?"

Jill shoves the knife into the card slot and runs the blade up and down. Suddenly, the blade breaks and its jagged chunk falls to the ground. Jill takes a deep, cleansing breath and releases it slowly.

"Chris, why does everything you take from TV seem to work for you?" Jill yells to the emptiness around her.

A series of heavy thuds snaps Jill out of her funk. Thick, powerful, plodding footsteps come down the tunnel. She takes a heavy gulp and slides the Magnum out of her belt. She takes a series of quick breathes, turns, and aims, leaving the faux Sgt. Hank Kendo looking down the end of the powerful firearm.

"Watch it where you point that thing!" Billy accuses.

"Sorry," Jill says, blushing. "I don't like enclosed spaces."

"Really? Couldn't tell."

"You got the card for this thing?"

"I probably do. Let's see." Billy pulls out a keycard emblazoned with his fake name and slides it through the scanner. Nothing happens. "Looks like I don't."

"It's a self-contained facility, isn't it?" Jill asks, not expecting an answer. Billy gives her a cheesy grin.

"I guess that key Leon has will do the trick," Billy offers.

"Why don't you try Melissa's?" Jill asks.

Billy pulls out the Melissa Crawford's card and slides it through. Nothing happens.

"Looks like we wait," Billy states.

"I hate waiting," Jill declares. "Makes me…edgy."

They didn't have long to wait. The sound of someone coming was unmistakable. A shadow came across the tunnel wall. Jill takes aim with the Magnum and Billy raises his rifle. Leon comes into view, his jacket and jeans stained with blood. He stares at the firearms leveled at his head and retorts with a grunt. Jill and Billy return the grunt and lower their weapons.

Without further explanation, Leon pulls out the keycard given to him and slides through the slot. A green light goes off and the heavy door slides away in two sections. The trio head the chamber beyond, not sure when the doors would slide back again. A magnetic hum reverberates and the doors slide together again. The chamber the three found themselves in was completely pitch black.

"So, you guys ever play Seven Minutes of Heaven?" Billy asks, chuckling a bit. A smack sound is heard. "Ow!"

"Sorry," Jill says, not the least sympathetic. "We need some light."

Leon's face becomes illuminated by the dim light of his cell phone. In the dimness of the light offered, Jill found a light switch and turned it on. All at once the chamber became flooded with light, easily blinding them. After a few minutes, the group could see again, relatively.

"And that is why I'll never wear night vision goggles," Billy declares.

"Amen, brother," Leon states. "Hey! It's an elevator."

"Which floor?" Jill asks Billy.

"Third," he replies, rubbing his eyes.

"You sure?" Leon asks.

"Third floor is weapons storage and maintenance," Billy explains. "We need ammo, we need weapons, and so we start there."

Jill turns to Leon. "Can't beat that logic."

"No you can't."

Jill hits the switch and the gears above grind to life. The heavy cables squeak and squeal as it lowers the elevator down into dark tunnel. The loud noise subsided but the trip down was nearing ten minutes. The trio passed the time checking their weapons and ammo reserves. Billy had nine shots left in the rifle, and three full clips, resulting in 36 rounds, but not enough if they got into a firefight with the entire zombie population. Jill 12 shots left in her clip, but only three fifteen-shot clips after that. Leon had two fifteen-shot clips left and nine shots left in the gun.


	10. Vignettes

The elevator finally ground to a halt and the door slid open on rusty wheels. Billy found a large gray switch and flipped it. A series of halogen lights clicked on, revealing an armory set before the group. Enough weapons were found to arm a small army, which the facility housed at one time. Among the weapons, there were also a few holsters and duffle bags.

Leon threw his jacket onto a nearby table and found a strap capable of holding a 16-gauge shotgun on his back. He found the shotgun of his choice slid it through the strap. Jill found a proper holster for her magnum, and her spare bullets. She removed the holster for her Beretta and wrapped it around her upper thigh. She then picked up a fully loaded riot gun. Billy slung the rifle across his shoulder and picked up a customized sub-machine gun, nicknamed the TMP by the guys in his unit. He found a stock for it, and a strap, and flung it over his opposite shoulder.

"Don't you want a shotgun?" Leon asks, throwing his jacket back on.

"Nah," Billy replies. "Got used to using automatic weapons down here. I don't wanna be flung back a few feet by my boomstick, y'know?"

"That's understandable," Jill adds. "I wasn't really all that proficient with a shotgun before we went into that mansion, but when we came out, I got good."

The rest of the time in the armory was spent getting extra ammo for their weapons, and trying to come up with semblance of a plan. They quickly came to a decision to lock the facility down and activate its automatic defenses, and wait out till morning. Easier said than done.

* * *

Ashley Graham impatiently drummed her fingers on the armrest in the backseat of the fancy car she was being forced to ride in. This spring break was beginning to wear on her nerves since she thought she'd be at the airport by now, going home to see her father in D.C.

_The problem with taking college courses in England_, she thought to herself. She looked out the window, seeing nothing but trees and dirt. She didn't know how long she was traveling on this dirt road, but this was starting to get ridiculous.

"Hey buddy!" Ashley yells to the driver. "Where are we going? Unless the nearest airport has been moved into the middle of nowhere, I demand to know where we're going!"

The car suddenly came to a stop, in front of an old farmhouse. The driver simply got out of the car, locked it, and ran down the beaten dirt path ahead. Panicking, Ashley struggled to get her door open.

"Stupid child locks!" she shouted. She rattles the doorknob and bangs on the window. Finding it futile, she climbs into the driver's seat. She hits the unlock button, but nothing seems to happen. "I gotta get outta here!"

Ashley digs through the car, trying to find something to get her out. All she found was a wallet stained with blood that had the ID of the guy that was supposed to drive her to the airport. Horrified, Ashley climbs in the back and huddles against the seat. Then she saw something. A big man dressed in a heavy coat with a thick beard approached the car. Somewhat relieved, Ashley looked to the man with a bright smile that suddenly faded when he ripped the door off its hinges.

"Welcome to Los Pueblos, Miss Graham," the bearded man said with a thick Spanish accent.

* * *

The ragtag team decided not to split up again, taking some comfort in having greater numbers. They found the central hub of the facility, a monitoring station that could keep track of everything coming or going. Billy sat down at one of three computer terminals. A login screen popped up.

"Let's see: Kendo, Hank," Billy says, typing the information into the space designated as "username". "Password: 4/Itchy Tasty." Billy hit enter and four panels appeared, outlining different areas of the facility.

"Nice work, 'Hank'," Jill says.

"Thanks," Billy replies.

"So, what possessed you to name yourself after the redneck who ran the Kendo Gun Shop?" Leon asks.

"Chris just needed a name and the Kendo family is so spread out across the country, it's hard to keep track of them all," Billy answers.

"I see," Jill says.

Billy hit a few keys on the keyboard, bringing into view the initial tunnel they traveled down. With a series of keystrokes, the massive door slid closed. With a few more strokes, he managed to get the automatic, wall-mounted guns operational. They came out of the wall and the image shifted to bring them into view.

"These'll keep 'em busy for a while," Billy declares. "Four guns, 250 armor piercing shots each. They fire in three-shot bursts and are accurate enough to pop the top off a beer."

"That's nice, but where do these things aim?" Leon inquires.

"Mainly body shots, but chances are they won't be able to stand up to all that firepower for long," Billy explains.

"I just hope nothing bigger comes with them," Jill says.

"You just had to say it, didn't you?" Leon accuses. "Now, you've done it, Jill. You've jinxed it."

Jill's only response to the accusation is an incoherent stammer.

"Not yet, she hasn't," Billy says. "These things don't like the sun for some reason, so when daybreak happens and they come cramming down our collective throats, _that's_ when we can blame Jill."

"You're seriousness in this matter is quite disturbing," Jill deadpans. "What's next, look for possible survivors?"

"Yeah, okay," Leon and Billy answer.


	11. Mystery

Jill hated the idea of splitting up but had no choice. They had to scope out the facility in detail and the only way to do it was to, as Billy so joyfully put it, "Split up, and look for clues, gang!" She took a stairwell that lead deeper into the facility and ended up on what she deemed to be the fifth floor. Not much could be seen of it, other than the lights above her that glowed an eerie shade of blue. The walls were lined with thick pipes and cables. Apparently, this corridor leads to the facility's power supply.

"Well, Jill, if worse comes to worse, maybe you'll blend in and nobody will see you," Jill says to herself, in a cheerful tone that she hadn't used since high school. Her voice sinks low and adds, "Yeah, and I get out of this without dealing with something completely unnatural."

As if on cue, some _thing_ dropped from the ceiling, behind Jill. Heavy breathing reverberated around the hallway. Jill draws the Beretta and turns around slowly. Bathed in the eerie blue of the lights, Jill saw something she thought couldn't be humanly possible: A creature with serrated spikes sticking out of its body that still seemed to have life to it. Jill didn't know what to think of it, but that didn't stop her before.

"Eat this, shithead!" Jill shouts.

The Beretta fires, blasting the creature in the head. The creature staggers back, headless. Its body turns towards its assailant. To Jill's horror, another head sprouts out of its stump of a neck. Jill gulps and brings up the riot shotgun. She fires, the explosion of power rips through the thing's body. It stumbles back, but the blown apart tissue seems to grow back.

"Well, this is an exercise in futility," Jill deadpans. "How the hell do you kill this thing?"

Frustrated, Jill draws the Magnum, takes aim, and fires. The powerful bullet slams through the creature. It seems to suffer from a convulsion and it suddenly explodes. A more curious person would have wanted to know why the thing suddenly regenerated destroyed tissue and imploded when blasted in a random spot, but Jill could only come up with:

"Whoa."

Leon decided to take the fourth floor. His handgun made a sweeping motion as he traversed the floor. Limited lighting created an eerie sensation in the back of Leon's mind. He wasn't afraid of the dark, but he preferred well-lit areas to better see the enemy. The only thing he found on this level were disheveled desks and discarded papers. From what he could find out about this floor was that it was an office area. He found the area to resemble the offices in the RPD station, except the desks had different name plates. He happened upon a desk that belonged to a Sgt. Hank Kendo.

"All right, Billy, let's see what you got in here," Leon utters to desk.

He sits down in the chair and opens up the drawers. He found several papers detailing the life of the non-existent Sgt. Hank Kendo. Everything from where he supposedly went to high school and who his possible parents were.

"Jeez, Chris, how thorough are you?" Leon says, as if Chris Redfield was right next to him. "If I ever have to go undercover, he's the go to guy, no question about it." Leon shuffles the papers around and comes across a few opened envelopes. "What do we have here?" He takes a letter out of one of the envelopes and looks it over before reading it aloud:

"Dear Billy,

How have you been? Since last we saw each other, I found the remains of my team and the remains of Alpha Team. We eventually escaped the mansion and it's an experience I'm not looking forward to repeating anytime soon. You're gonna hate me for this but when I got to the house, I panicked and lost most of the weapons we found on the train and the facility. Don't be too mad. I'm still alive and hopefully we'll see each other again. You're dog tags are still around my neck, and some day you'll get 'em back.

-Rebecca."

"The letter of a girl in love with her knight in shining armor," Leon says dryly. "Some guys get all the luck."

He puts the letter and the papers back in the drawer. He stood up and stretched out his legs. Leon groans, having strained a muscle in his chest. A couple years ago, a sharp talon pierced through him between his right peck and shoulder.

A creaking sound immediately grabbed Leon's attention. He readied his gun and skulked through the office area. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his head and blacked out.

A figure in black stood over the fallen government agent. His once ice blue eyes concealed by a pair of thick, black shades. His pale face was illuminated eerily in the fluorescent lights and his slicked-back, blonde hair seemed to glow.

"So, this is the infamous Leon Scott Kennedy," the figure says. With the toe of his thick boot, he flips Leon onto his back, and picks him up by the neck. His shades lock onto Leon's closed eyes. "Kind of looks like that Burnside guy Redfield's sister ran into. What's so special about you, Mr. Kennedy?"

He suddenly drops Leon to his knees and pushes him lightly onto the floor. The figure in black had better things to do than wonder about the government's hiring policy. He walks to the stairwell, his eyes glow a strange red from behind the thick shades. Albert Wesker was sent here for a reason and he intend to stick to his mission.

Billy decided to stake out the monitor room so he could keep tabs on Jill and Leon, and because he's the only one in the group who knew how to get past most of the locks in the facility. He sat at a computer terminal, watching Jill skulk around the facility's mini-nuclear power plant. Billy's heart rate increased slightly, hoping that nothing else was in the room that would cause the ex-S.T.A.R.S. member to unload a few shells from that riot gun or Magnum. One stray shot, and that'd be all she wrote.

Jill just examined the power regulations and various computer screens before moving on. Billy let out a sigh of relief. He didn't know how good a shot she was, but if she was on Chris' team, she had to have a pretty steady arm. He diverts his attention to another image. He wasn't sure why, but he lost track of Leon. The static surrounding the fourth floor cameras suddenly dissipated.

"We're stuck underground and he takes a nap?" Billy asks the screen in front of him.

Leon visibly groans and stands up. He rubs the back of his head and hunches over. That was all Billy needed to know: someone came up from behind him and knocked him out. Having been in a similar situation with the butt of a standard-issue rapid-assault rifle out in Africa, Billy sympathized a bit with Leon. He wasn't entirely sure what to think of him yet but any guy who saved the sister of one of his best friends couldn't be all bad.

A shuffling noise of sorts brought Billy out of his daydream. As far as he knew, no one else was on this floor except him and whatever survivors Jill thought were here. Apparently her mentality to save lives in a desperate, hopeless situation didn't fade away, even after being trapped in a house infested with the dead. Needing the distraction anyway, Billy grabbed his rifle and slowly headed toward the shuffling noise. It lead him to a wall, but there were no stairs of elevators near it. In fact, the only entrance was on the other side of the room.

Billy lightly taps the wall, hoping not to disturb whatever is on the other side. After a few minutes of waiting, Billy knocked a little harder.

"Hollow?" he says, the confusion evident in his voice.

He runs his hands against the wall, until he comes to rest it on a small indent just below his waist level. He gives it a quick touch and a small section of the wall opens up. Billy looks around his new surroundings and sees a stairwell and limited lighting.

"When'd they put this in?" Billy asks himself. "Well, you're one to be asking after they blindfolded you, drove you through the desert, and took you on an alternate route to this place. My shrink's gonna have a field day with this when everything is said and done…and I'm talking to myself again."

Billy activates his rifle's laser sight and descends down the stairs. It didn't go very far, which Billy somewhat relieved about. On the last step, he came to a stone floor lined with pillars from the ceiling to the ground. He scopes the area out, not finding too much wrong with this picture, except for the cell-like structure imbedded into the left wall. Billy gave it a quick once-over, finding the bars to be ripped out by whatever was held in place.

Billy uneasily backed away from the cell, sweat pouring down his face. He didn't scare too easily these days, but something able to rip through a steel cage certainly got his adrenaline pumping. Then he heard the shuffling noise again. He couldn't see anything else in the small room, until he looked up. He saw a man hanging from the ceiling, somehow. Billy took a few steps back, his boots making a loud echo in the confined space.

The man on the ceiling released his grip on the ceiling and fell to the floor. Four steel blades seemed to pop out of the man's forearms. Billy jumped out of the way before the blade-wielding maniac got too close. The man-thing's claws slammed into the concrete floor. He struggled to get it out, and roared inhumanly in doing so. Billy staggered back and raised the rifle.

"Vaya con Dios," Billy mutters and fires at the man-thing's chest.

The blast from the rifle wretches the man from the floor, freeing his arm weapon. That's when Billy got a good look at him. His face was covered in a white mask that has seen better days, with a snake emblem etched into it. A similar snake was tattooed on the man-thing's chest, along with a scar from the top of his shoulder to his abs.

The man-thing seemed to shake the blast off and caused his primary weapon to retract into his arm. Billy was puzzled why it didn't decide to run him through with those claws of his. Ever one to learn more about his enemies, Billy unsheathed his knife and threw it in the thing's general direction. It reacted to the noise the knife made when it impacted the ground. The creature than slashed furiously at the knife's general area.

Billy grinned evilly. "He's blind, eh? This'll be fun."

He raises the rifle and aims for the thing's back. Not the most honorable thing, but Billy figured that honor could take a back seat right now. Billy fires at the clawed-thing, the rifle's bullet burrowing into its back. The creature screams in pain and flails wildly. Not waiting for an invitation, Billy brings up the TMP and fires its entire fifty-round clip into the creature's back. The clawed thing collapses to the floor, and a murky black fluid seems to spew out of the opened wound.

Billy ejects the TMP clip and slams another one into it before slinging it over his shoulder. He kicks the rifle into semi-auto mode and approaches the fallen creature. Small tentacles sprout of the creature's back. Not taking any chances, Billy grabs his knife of the ground and digs the tentacle thing out of its host. He examines it, not sure what it is.

"What the hell is going on here?"


	12. Interlude II

A cold wind swept through the church, carrying the memories of a time forgotten. A robed man looked over the church's balcony, drumming his fingers absently on the staff in his hands. He looked over his shoulder to see a man in a chauffeur outfit, which didn't seem to fit too well.

"You have done well, Krauser," the robed man said.

The one designated as Krauser simply lifted his head up in acknowledgement, his scar that ran the length from under his eye to his lip came into view. He rips apart the outfit he was forced to wear to accomplish his mission, revealing a gray shirt, and artic commando fatigues. Krauser replaces the limo-driver hat with a blood red beret and stands at attention.

"I'm amazed that you were able to bring us the girl so willingly," the robed man complements. "Knowing you, I would have thought the girl tried to escape."

"That's what the sedatives were for," Krauser replies flatly. "So, what's the next stage of the plan?"

The robed man turns to face Krauser. "You'll find out in due time, Krauser. You can be sure of that. Now, I suggest you leave me before I get grumpy. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," Krauser replies with disdain. He turns and leaves, goose-stepping as he goes. Under his breath he mutters, "Pompous windbag."

"American lout," the robed man says half-hushed. "Now, who will come for the President's daughter, I wonder?"

Krauser found his way to the back of the church, one of the few structures in the small, Spanish-speaking village somewhere in Europe. He takes out a small radio and turns it on.

"How goes it, Al?" he asks into the device.

"Could be going better," came the reply of a man with as deep a voice as Krauser. "I ran into the government lapdog you mentioned."

"Kennedy? What about him?"

"Seems the government is getting wise to our little operation out here. Won't be long until they find _it_."

"They? Who else is out there?" Krauser takes out a packet of cigarettes and lights up.

"Ever hear of a guy named Billy Coen?"

"Good soldier, takes orders well, but has moral convictions. S'pose to be dead. Why?"

"Apparently, Miss Chambers is a better liar than I thought."

Krauser takes a deep drag on his cigarette. "I see." He exhales the thick smoke. "Anyone else?"

"Valentine," the voice said with venom.

"Guess ol' Nemesis didn't get the job done," Krauser chuckles.

"The woman is harder to get rid of than Redfield. What's so special about Kennedy anyway?"

"If he has a knife in his hand, you better not to be too attached to your fingers."

"Understood. Wesker out."

Krauser turns the radio off and hooks it to his belt. He flicks his cigarette away just as an imposing shadow approaches him.

"What do you want?" Krauser asks the shadow.

"Lord Saddler will contact you when you're services are once again required," the bearded man says in his thick accent.

"I see," Krauser replies, just before a big, meaty fist drives the air from his lungs.

"That's for the 'pompous windbag' remark." The bearded man turns and heads back to the village at the base of the hill.

"I hope someday someone rips that fake eye of yours out, freak," Krauser contemplates darkly.

Leon massaged his shoulder as he continued to investigate the office area. He was slightly confused that a training facility for government soldiers and agents needed an accounting firm, but it made as much sense as the Raccoon Police Station having lavish works of art in its lobby. He drew his gun in case he got ambushed again, but he'd rather find out who sucker-punched him.

_Just one of those days, eh, Leo? _Leon thought to himself. He found his way into a boardroom. Scattered papers decorated the room, along with discarded Styrofoam cups and Coke cans. Instinctively, Leon looked to the ceiling. When nothing happened for three minutes, he continued his investigation. Through the trash on the board table, he came across a few ID tags and hastily written passwords on some of the papers. Then he noticed the blood on some of the chairs.

Leon holstered the handgun and drew the shotgun off his back. He knew something had to kill these people and that they'd be back. That's when he heard it. A clicking noise of jagged claws penetrating the hard surface underneath the cheap blue carpet.

"Here, doggy, doggy, doggy," Leon says in a sing-song voice. "Daddy's got a biscuit for you."

The clicking increased in tempo and Leon fired. He fired and fired and fired again until the noise stopped and the boardroom was covered in broken glass, dog body parts, and a few shotgun shells. He reloads the shotgun and gives it a quick pump before holstering it away.

"If there's anything worse than these things, I don't wanna know," Leon says.

As he walks out of the boardroom he notices something shining from around one of the dogs' collars. He picks it up to find a red and white tag with jutting edges. Leon crushes it in his hand and stomps on it.

"Umbrella," he growls.


	13. Nemesis

**Author's Notes: **I'd like to thank everyone who has read and reviewed. I'm not sure how many chapters this baby's gonna be, so just bear with me. If you have any ideas, don't hesitate to speak up. On with the show.

* * *

Jill began to finish up her examination of the fifth floor. All she found were mangled body parts, ripped clothes, and shells belonging to various caliber guns. She wouldn't think much of the current she was in, a locker room of sorts, if the lights didn't keep flickering on and off.

"What kind of nut puts a locker room on the same floor as a nuclear generator?" Jill asks her reflection in the wall-length mirror in the shower. "Possibly the same nut who built that house of horrors you had to endure. Jill, you need a vacation after this."

Putting off what sanity she had left, Jill surveyed the room. Lockers were thrown open, their various contents strewn on the floor. Deodorants, boot polish, dog tags, and even a few girlie magazines were crushed beneath Jill's sneakers. She checked some of the still closed lockers but found nothing of use, except a spray on deodorant that would make her irresistible to women as shown in its commercial.

"Here's the good news, Jill: you found nothing that wanted to tear off your head and eat it. The bad news: no one else is here." She sighs in defeat and proceeds to walk out of the locker room, until a banging noise immediately got her attention. "No rest for the pessimistic."

Jill draws the riot gun and heads for the noise. She comes to a locker flat against a wall on the other side of the room. The banging seems to be coming from it. Jill nervously opens it but finds nothing in it. The banging noise continues again. Jill nervously backs away.

On her seventh step, a massive creature bursts through the wall. A series of staples runs from just above its right eye to where the bridge of its nose _should_ be. Its lips had been removed, exposing mutant gums and large teeth. Its single eye looked at Jill with a burning hatred.

"Staaaaarrrrrrssssss…" the creature growled.

"Oh, shit!" Jill shouts. She raises the riot gun and fires into the thing's face but it didn't even flinch. "I don't suppose we can talk about this, right?"

The mammoth creature backhanded Jill across the locker room as she was nothing. She collides into the shower's mirror and falls face first on the ground. She moans in pain and shakily tries to stand up, but to no avail. The massive weight of the creature caused the lockers to shudder and the tiled ground to splinter. Jill wobbly stands up, just in time to come face to face with the hulking creature.

"So, Nemesis, how've you been?" Jill asks, trying to hide the sheer terror she's feeling.

"Staaaaarrrrrrssssss…" growled Nemesis.

It raises back one of its mighty fists and Jill braces for the end, eyes closed. When she didn't feel her face being smashed into tiny pieces, Jill opened her eyes to see four metal spikes had somehow penetrated the Nemesis' body. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Jill ran to the other side of the locker room. She saw a creature that could have been a man with a steel helmet fashioned to its head and a set of metal claws protruding from its other hand.

"This day is getting freakier and freakier," Jill concludes.

The bladed creature yanked out the claws imbedded in Nemesis' chest and took a swipe with its other blades at the Tyrant's neck. The Nemesis didn't drop, nor did it bleed. The bladed creature backed away, confused that whatever it impaled didn't fall. Nemesis slammed one of its powerful fists up the side of the bladed creature's head, knocking its helmet off. The momentum of the blow catapulted it into the wall Jill took cover against.

Jill leaned over to see who her savior and/or new enemy was. Its eyes had either been removed or sewn together. In any event, it couldn't see and didn't know what it was up against.

"_Staaaaarrrrrrssssss…!_" Nemesis roared.

The bladed creature sprung to its feet and charged for the Tyrant. Nemesis tried taking swipes at its newest enemy, but the bladed creature proved to be too fast for its powerful fists. Sharp blades made contact with Nemesis' face, drawing viscous fluid. Nemesis roared in annoyance and slammed one fist into the creature's chest. Jill could hear bones cracking and saw a pair of tentacles erupt out of the thing's back.

"_Staaaaarrrrrrssssss…!" _Nemesis roared, having taken enough from this distraction. With the bladed creature being incapacitated with pain, Nemesis grabbed it by the wrists, lifted it up, and with an explosion of rage, ripped the bladed creature in two.

Jill gulped hard, not wanting to fight another Nemesis. She was thankful for one thing, this one didn't have a rocket launcher. The Nemesis roared and charged for the frightened Jill. It dove at her and Jill ducked. The Nemesis' massive body plowed through the wall and into an elevator shaft on the other side. A sickening boom followed shortly after, but Jill knew it wouldn't be the last time she would see it.

"The guys'll never believe this," Jill says.

She gingerly steps over the fallen pieces of the creature that inadvertently tried to save her life. As she made her way towards the door, her shoe kicked something metal. Jill looked down to see a combat knife hidden amongst some old _Playboys_. She smiles a bit and holsters it.

"Thanks, Hef." Jill takes one last look around and heads out the door.


	14. Answers

Billy strolled through the facility's fifth floor, hoping to catch up with Jill and tell her what he found. He absently rubs one of his wrists, not really thinking much of it. He found it to be nasty habit ever since he got his hands free from the Military-issue cuffs strapped to his wrists. He pushes the thought out of his mind as he draws his rifle. He thought he heard something in the walls, followed by a loud crash.

"That's it, I'm goin' nuts," Billy declares. He scrunches against the wall, holding tightly to his rifle. He takes a few deep breaths, slightly trembling.

A door in the side of the wall opens and Billy takes aim, catching a surprised Jill in the process.

"We have to stop meeting like this," Jill says tiredly.

"Yeah, but what're ya gonna do about it," Billy replies. "So, gettin' a little rowdy in the boys room, were you?"

"Yeah, an old boyfriend that won't seem to stay dead." Jill sighs. "What brings you here?"

"I found something, or someone, that tried way to hard to be like Wolverine," Billy explains. Jill looks at him with a strange expression. "Hugh Jackman from _X-Men_?"

"Oh! Oh, I see. Sorry. I ran into one too, and now it's in two."

"What happened?"

"A zombified version of the Incredible Hulk, that's what. Wanna see?"

"Sure!"

They enter the remains of the locker room. The gapping hole in the wall immediately caught Billy's attention, but when his boots connected with a set of metal claws, he looked down.

"This one looks a little different than the one I encountered," Billy says, giving one half of the thing a kick. "Looked like Vega from Street Fighter."

"Chris' favorite game," Jill adds. "What do you think it is?"

"I have no idea, but all I do know, this thing has a second thing in its back you have to shoot at. Everywhere else is futile."

"I see. Where does that shaft go?" Jill points to the hole the Nemesis made its exit in.

"All the way down to the eleventh floor," Billy answers. "Why?"

"That's where my 'savior' made his exit."

"Umbrella monster, or not, I doubt its getting up any time soon." Billy gestures towards the other hole in the room. "That where he came in from?"

"Yep." Jill draws her Magnum.

Billy goes first. With all the loud noise he heard through the halls, he wasn't taking any chances with Jill getting hurt. He knew she could definitely take care of herself, but he had this habit of being chivalrous. The hole in the wall lead to a medical examination room. Hospital beds and stretchers adorned the place, along with a few tubes of something in them.

"What exactly is going on here, Bill?" Jill asks in a Southern drawl.

"I got no idea, darlin'," Billy replies with a Arkansas accent, "but I do know is them Duke boys is causin' trouble."

Before the two was a tube filled with a strange liquid and a creature that defied God's creation, with its sewed together body, long sharp claws on its right hand, and a face that looked like it went a few rounds with a lawn mower blade.

Leon found his way to the monitor room, finding nothing of value on the rest of the fourth floor. His jacket was starting to make him sweat, but he didn't care. He spent good money on it when he got out of Raccoon City and he wasn't in the mood to get rid of it just because it got hot. He sits down at a computer terminal and lets out a deep exhale.

"I wonder how the others are doing," Leon thinks aloud. "Probably in the same boat as you."

"I don't know, they seem to be doing all right for themselves…Leonard," says a voice from behind Leon.

The government agent leaps out of the chair, brandishing his handgun. A man dressed in black, covert mission gear stands before Leon, staring at him with thick black shades.

"Wesker, I presume?" Leon inquires.

"You catch on quick," Wesker states dryly. "What do you intend to do, shoot me? Not if you want answers, you don't." Leon holsters the gun. "That's better."

"What are you doing here?" Leon asks, sizing Wesker up.

"I'm just here to collect what's mine, that's all," Wesker replies. "Is that so wrong?"

"I'm not sure. After all, that's what you said when you lead your team into that mansion."

"Heard about that, did you? It was quite fun, but the time for talking is over. I want to see what you're made of." Wesker adjusts his glasses and draws his knife.

Leon throws his jacket off, and unsheathes his knife.

"The guns as well, cowboy," Wesker warns.

Leon, begrudgingly, drops his guns to the floor. He holds his knife with the blade parallel to his forearm and Wesker brandishes his like a sword. Wesker kicks off the ground and dives towards Leon. The former cop deflects the blade, creating a rift of sparks between the two knives. Wesker impacts the floor, making a small hole with his feet.

"You're fast, I'll give you that," Wesker compliments, "but you won't last long against me."

Leon adjusts the position of his knife. "I have questions and you have answers, so why don' t you humor me for a bit?"

"Well, that depends. Think you can get 'em out of me?"

A devious grin comes to Leon's face. "Guess we'll see."

Sparks fly between the combat knives as their wielders try to overpower each other. Leon tries to dodge otherwise fatal swipes of Wesker's knife, forcing him to stay on the defensive. Then, the two combatants come face to face, their knives grinding into each other.

"So what's the story with this place, Wesker? Tryout before Raccoon?" Leon asks, grunting.

"Reverse order, Officer," Wesker replies. He boots Leon in the chest, sending him crashing into a wall. Leon collapses to the floor with a knife barely touching his neck. "See, after Valentine and her Latin boyfriend blew the whistle on Umbrella, along with you and Redfield's sister's testimony, the company fell on some hard times."

"Yeah, greatest day of my life," Leon spits back, knocking the knife away from his throat and standing up. He and Wesker circle around each other. "I take it they just wouldn't go quietly in the night?"

"You're sharp. Umbrella had to go into hiding…" Wesker grunts and takes a swipe that _barely_ misses Leon's face. "…Until much of this mess was cleared up. That's when they came into contact with someone who was witness during the Code: Veronica incident."

"The European outbreak, as I recall." Leon rams his knife towards Wesker, to only have it deflected. Wesker takes advantage of Leon's opening and slams his hand against his chest. Leon tumbles through the air, and quickly rights himself. His feet dig through the cheap carpeting on the floor. "I guess that enhanced strength Chris talked about wasn't just smoke."

Wesker grins. He charges for Leon, who tries valiantly to dodge his strikes.

"The witness was intrigued with Umbrella's research and wanted to help them out," Wesker grunts, trying to push Leon back. "He presented them with a gift."

Leon executes a roundhouse kick upside Wesker's head. The older man tumbles back, otherwise unfazed. His glasses hadn't been knocked off his face.

"What kinda gift?" Leon asks, his interest now piqued.

"A DNA strand of a most unusual creature," Wesker replies. "Umbrella was intrigued that this creature, whatever it was, could regenerate dead cells in a different way than their viruses."

Wesker swipes at Leon shoulder. Leon counters with a cross to Wesker's jaw. He rubs his chin before continuing.

"So it was only natural that they test out their viruses on the sample. The creature's DNA bonded with the T-Virus on a completely different level and improved on it…but they couldn't stop there."

"The G-Virus?" Leon inquires.

"I like you, kid," Wesker states. "You're much faster at this than Redfield. Anyway, the same results happened, but the final test came with the Veronica strand. The creature's blood mutated its properties even further to the point where not even their precious anti-viruses could stop the mutation."

"But they needed somewhere to test it," Leon says.

Wesker chuckles. "Exactly."

Leon makes a diagonal slash with his knife, to have it blocked with Wesker's. With a grunt, the former S.T.A.R.S. captain hurls Leon through a wall and into the armory behind it. Various guns and rifles fall around Leon, but he didn't care. He stands and charges out to face Wesker.

"So why here?" Leon shouts, his knife _almost_ making contact with Wesker's shades.

"Umbrella heard of a government instillation out here and couldn't resist," Wesker explains. He pushes Leon's blade away with his free hand and his knife lightly grazes Leon's neck. Leon strikes the knife away and the combatants circle. "They flooded the entire facility with knockout gas and executed the military personnel with their special army."

"The UBCS," Leon says. "Figures."

"But of course. Once the big guns were out of the way, all that was left were the administrators and paper pushers keeping this place up and running."

"Test subjects."

Leon throws his knife at Wesker. He catches the hilt of the knife with his free hand before it impales him between the eyes. Wesker than throws it back. Leon snags it back in a similar manner and readies himself.

"The first batch proved successful and could even survive shots to the face." Wesker growls and takes a swing with his left leg. Leon blocks the kick, causing his shoes to dig more into the carpeting. "Then they got kind of greedy."

Wesker's next roundhouse kick goes for Leon's head. He ducks out of the way and comes at Wesker with a punch, to have it blocked with one of Wesker's fists. Leon gets pushed back, ripping up even more carpeting. He shakes his hand, trying to restore the blood flow to it.

Wesker runs his fingers along the edge of his knife. "They administered all three viruses to the creature's DNA and found a most pleasing result, but at a price. Although these new breed of zombies could last longer, and yes, even regenerate a bit, they couldn't handle direct sunlight. Something about the external heat causing a fast metabolic breakdown on a cellular level."

"Which is why the infected townspeople came down here," Leon adds. "They didn't anticipate that, or them finding this place."

"Umbrella doesn't think anything completely through on these deals, Scott. Hasn't that accrued to you yet? Anyway, by that time, Umbrella was using the facility as a smoke screen to mask their devious intentions, which is why Commando Billy didn't know too much about how he got here."

"They kept enough personnel alive to keep the place running, in case the government got wise to them."

"Bingo."

Leon administers a flying dropkick at Wesker's chest, to have his ankle grabbed and slammed into the ground. "So, what brings the great Captain Wesker down here?"

"To find those mutant samples, why else?" A laser sight finds its way onto Wesker's forehead. "Well, well, the gang's all here." He releases Leon, and accidentally drops his knife.. "I guess I'll take my leave." Wesker drops a blue grenade that explodes into a white flash just before it hits the ground.

"He's gone!" Jill exclaims.

"How long have you guys been here?" Leon asks, his face red from the increased blood flow to his skull.

"Since 'They got kind of greedy'," Billy replies, helping Leon to his feet. "Friend of yours?" Leon points to Jill.

"Former captain," she replies. "You all right?"

"I'll be fine, but I don't think my knife will be." Leon holds it up, showing that its been dulled in several places.

"No sweat, man," Billy says. He picks up Wesker's knife. "Finders keepers, right?"

Leon notices it that it has a snake design etched into it, but thinks nothing of it. He takes it from Billy and sheathes it. Leon gathers his guns and holsters and straps them around his shoulders. He was just about to grab his jacket when Jill spoke up.

"Can I have that for a while?" she asked. "It's freezing down here!"

"Sure," Leon says, tossing it to her. "Startin' to sweat."

"Nice fit!" Jill says. "Find out anything else?"

"Yeah, but I'd rather not talk about it?"

"Dogs?" Billy asks.

"Dogs," Leon replies. "What'd you guys find?"

"I think we oughta show you," Billy says. "It'll blow your mind."

At the bottom of an elevator shaft, Nemesis slept. Its massive body collapsed the unfortunate elevator on the last floor. Suddenly, its single eye opened, with renewed rage.

"_Staaaaarrrrsssss!_" it roared.

The wounds it sustained from the bladed creature it ripped apart where gone, along with the injuries it sustained from the fall. The Tyrant let out a loud roar only heard in the basement level. Its hunting program kicked in, a leftover side effect the Umbrella technicians couldn't get rid of. Nemesis had to complete its mission: eliminate all Raccoon City S.T.A.R.S. members.

With renewed strength, Nemesis dug its powerful fingers into the shaft and began to climb. Its mass caused the vertical tunnel to shake and rattle, but it didn't care. A S.T.A.R.S. member was here, and it intended to kill her.


	15. Tyrants

The heels of her red, ankle-high boots clicked along the castle's stone walkway. Her red leather skirt, and matching blouse, was highly visible at this ungodly hour. A small handgun was strapped to one of her thighs, with one of her hands ready to draw it at the first sign of trouble. She had a mission to carry out and she was almost done.

A monk stood in her way. He came towards the woman in red, muttering some prayer in Spanish. She wasn't much for learning foreign languages, except mastering various forms of Chinese and Japanese. The woman in red impaled her heel into the monk's chest. Crimson fluids seeped out of the wound and the monk groaned in pain.

A gun finds its way into the monk's face and fires. His head explodes off his neck and tumbles back. The woman digs through the man's body, hoping to find anything.

"Bingo," she says, picking up a small vial filled with a red-violet fluid. "Five up, five down."

She slips the vial into a notch on her belt, along with four others of the same type. She slowly backs away from the monk's fallen body and takes aim with the gun. After a few tense seconds, a deformed crimson head erupted from the monk's headless body and rose. A tentacle with a blade at its end whipped at the woman in red.

"Damn parasites," the woman cursed and fired.

The red _thing_ exploded in a cloud of yellow puss and the body was once again motionless. Just for good measure, she lowers the gun at the monk's original head and blasts it into dust. A click sound follows after and the gun's clip ejects. She slams another clip into the gun and holsters it. Ada Wong's assignment was far from over.

"You're telling me that Wesker survived getting stabbed in the chest by this thing?" Leon asked. He'd seen his share of Tyrants over the years, but seeing the original that almost did in the rest of the S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team was pretty impressive.

"Yeah, well, that's the way Chris tells it," Jill says. "Seems this one is in pretty bad shape."

"Maybe, but let's hope it stays that way," Billy adds. He picks up a medical chart near the Tyrant's tank. "According to this, Mr. Big over here is a recovered Tyrant from Umbrella's Caliban Cove facility."

"Caliban Cove? That's where Rebecca went with that other S.T.A.R.S. team shortly after the mansion incident." Jill walks around the tank. "Wonder how she missed it."

Billy thumbs through a few pages. "It was kept in a bunker deep beneath the island and was relatively safe from the island's detonation." Billy sets the chart down. "Guess they don't like to leave loose ends around."

"Guess not," Leon says. "How'd you kill this thing?"

"You take a rocker launcher and aim for its pulsating heart," Jill replies. "Chris had to fire twice."

Billy chuckles. "Red wasn't much for using a bazooka. What was it, a quad launcher."

"Yeah," Jill giggles.

"All this remembrance is great and all, but is there a way to kill this thing before it does us in?" Leon asks.

"You tried that once, remember?" Jill retorts.

"Oh, yeah," Leon replies dryly. "Got out anyway."

"What happened?" Bill questions.

"I don't wanna talk about it. Let's just leave it and hope it doesn't get out."

Jill points to a broken tube over in the corner. "Yeah? Well, let's hope this thing ain't programmed to wake up soon."

"The master of unlocking has a good point," Leon says to Billy.

"I agree." Billy readies his rifle. "Let's get outta here. This place gives me the creeps."

A thunderous shaking noise startles them. With a quick look at each other, they exit into the remains of the locker room on the other side of the busted apart wall. The creature that attacked the Nemesis had dissolved into dust, leaving only its claws on the ground. Leon and Billy look down the exposed elevator shaft.

"See anything?" Billy asks.

"Nothing, but something is down there," Leon replies.

"_Staaaaarrrrrrssssss!_" shouted an inhuman voice.

Leon looks over at Jill with an annoyed look on his face. "I can't take you anywhere without running into your old boyfriend, can I?"

"Apparently not, Agent Man," Jill retorts. "What do we do?"

A rattling noise gets Billy's attention. It intensifies with each boom of Nemesis' hands slamming into the tunnel.

"Guys, I think we gotta move…like now!" Billy orders.

"What for?" Jill asks.

"Do you wanna be here when that thing causes that test tube to break?" Billy spits back. "_Move it!_"

The group quickly runs out of the locker room, avoiding the metallic claws on the ground. They skid out into the hallway, feeling the vibrations of Nemesis' approach through the floor. Jill closes the door and jams the lock with Leon's dulled knife.

"Think it'll hold?" Billy asks.

"No, but it's better than nothing," Jill replies.

The unmistakable sound of a glass tube shattering could be heard. Billy, Jill, and Leon look at each other in turn and come to a conclusion:

"Basement."

The Nemesis finally made its way back up the tunnel and burst through the remainder of the wall it fell through. Despite the lack of a nose, it new that its programmed target was just here along with two other scents, but didn't care. Nemesis swept the room with its singular eye, not really noticing anything but the closed door. It had an exit.

"Staaaaarrrrrrsssss," Nemesis hissed, making his way to the door.

Inside the tiny med lab, which used to be the women's locker room, through the wall in the locker room, a creature began to stir. The thunderous vibrations caused by Nemesis' ascent awakened it, despite the heavy sedatives and vibration dampeners in its glass prison.

With a guttural growl, the Tyrant's eyes opened. The blue color in the tube was sucked into its body and the scars on its face immediately healed, creating the visage Jill and Chris faced on the roof of the Spencer Mansion. Now immune to the heavy sedatives in its tank, the Tyrant wanted out. Its massive claw smashed through the once-thought indestructible glass. Tyrant steps out of the tube's remains and searches. It felt another presence close by.

Nemesis stopped in its tracks upon hearing the glass shattering. It turned around and came face to face with a creature in even worse shape than it. Its is body sewn together, with massive muscles, and a long serrated claw for a hand. Nemesis stared this new distraction down, despite it being a good twelve inches taller.

Tyrant looked down at Nemesis, not caring too much for the other Tyrant-class creature. Tyrant had a mindset to kill fresh meat and this abomination was standing in its way. Without a second thought, Tyrant slapped Nemesis out of its way and approached the door. Nemesis was relatively unfazed by the massive claw colliding with its head.

"Staaaaarrrrrsssss!" Nemesis roared and dived at Tyrant.

Caught off guard, the larger creature crashed to the tiled surface of the locker room. Tyrant backhands Nemesis onto some fallen lockers. The heavier beast easily busts them apart, as Tyrant stands. Nemesis blacks out, suffering from some slash marks across its chest, that dug into its internal organs. Tyrant was about to apply the finishing blow, when a voice ringed out.

"Stop!" the voice ordered.

Tyrant obediently did what it was told. It turned to see Wesker standing by the door. Tyrant was about to strike the foolish human in its way, but stopped just short of impaling Wesker through his perfectly coifed hair.

"I'm glad to see Umbrella was finally able to install those 'friendly-fire' programs into your primitive brain," Wesker says. The Tyrant struggles to try and stab Wesker, but can't seem to move. "You don't want to kill me, do you, Tyrant? No, no you don't. Fresh meat is down below. Hunt for it. The shaft is quickest way."

The former S.T.A.R.S. captain points to the elevator shaft and the Tyrant dives for it.

Wesker looks at Nemesis with a bit of wariness. "I'd better get out of here, in case I'm on that thing's S.T.A.R.S. hit list."

Wesker barges out of the room, busting the makeshift lock on the door, and disappears into the darkness beyond. The Nemesis awakes, catching the scent of another on its list.

"Wesssskeeeeer…" it hissed.

Jill, Billy, and Leon made it down to the basement level without too much difficulty. Nothing stood in their way, save for a few mutilated corpses and Billy trying to remember some of the passwords Umbrella let him have. All there was in the basement was an elevator shaft that went straight up and straight down, and evidence that someone lived down here. According to Billy, the last stop was in an office building in the small town.

"Must be a bomb shelter or something," Leon surmised. "Certainly looks like one."

A loud grinding noise caught their attention.

"Where the hell is that coming from?" Jill asked no one in particular.

"Whatever it is, it's comin' in fast," Billy said.

The small team spread out in the confined space, and the grinding noise became louder. Jill walked over to the elevator shaft and looked up. She then screamed. Jill was immediately pulled back, just as a massive object crashed down the remains of the shaft. The three landed against the back wall from the force of impact.

"Jill sandwich, anyone?" Leon says. Jill slugs him in his shoulder. "Ow."

"You gotta be kidding me!" Billy exclaims. "It followed us down here! Jeez, Jill, what'd you do to that thing?"

"That's the thing we saw in the tube," Jill states dryly. She turns to Leon. "Think it's dead?"

"Hell no," Leon deadpans. "I suggest we get out of here before it decides to wake up."

"Best plan I've heard all day." Billy stands up and helps Jill to her feet. "Let's motor."

They rush out the door and lock it, for how futile it would be in the long-run when their uninvited guest decided to stand up. Tyrant's eyes open and it shakily stands to its feet. Within a minute, the damage it suffered from its fall is instantly repaired. It growls in frustration, not finding the prey promised from the lowly human.

Tyrant took in a deep inhale of the room, finding the scent of three humans recently here, plus the stench of rotting flesh. Puzzled, it rips apart the small cube of a room with its massive claw. Finding its search futile, Tyrant decided to take care of business with the putrid creature that attacked it. Before Tyrant scaled the elevator, a slithery tongue wrapped around its neck.

Frustrated, Tyrant pulls at the tongue, causing a Licker to fall from the ceiling. The mutant creature sizes up Tyrant and dives at it. Tyrant reels its claw back and impales the Licker through its chest. The mutant frog-like creature squirms in pain and flails its tongue wildly. Tentacles burst from Tyrant's massive claw and wrap around the Licker. The mutant screams, as its genetic structure is absorbed into Tyrant's body. The tentacles sink back into the claw, leaving behind the Licker's skeleton that immediately falls and shatters.

Tyrant suddenly felt different, as if its hunting instincts had increased and its tracking abilities heightened. Tyrant's tongue fires out of its mouth and smashes down the only door, while standing on the other side of the area.


	16. Doors

By the time the trio hit the eighth floor, they heard a muffled boom. Billy pressed a button by the stairwell that led from the ninth to the eighth, causing a massive steel door to slide from the ceiling and into the floor. A hydraulic hiss signaled that the door was locked into place. This floor was comprised of numerous doors and rooms side by side, forming a tunnel, much to Jill's dismay.

"Let's hope that ain't what we think it is," Billy says. "In the meantime, why don't we scope this place out?"

"What's on this floor anyway?" Jill asks.

"I'm not sure," Billy replied. "Never been on this floor before. I've only been on levels three, four, five, and nine."

"What's floor nine?" Leon asks.

"Shooting range." Billy points to a door. "I'll take this one."

"I'll take the one right next to it," Jill says.

"I'll take one on the other wall," Leon states.

They each took a door and rushed in.

Billy found himself in a vast, dimly lit library. Bookshelves stretched as far as he could see, despite how small the room looked in the tunnel. He strolls through the numerous aisles, his rifle at the ready, and finding that no shelf held any books. His good friend Chris told him that he encountered a gigantic snake in that "Hell on Earth mansion," and Billy was in no mood to take second chances.

"Hello?" Billy shouts into the vast emptiness around him. "Anybody living in here?"

A scurrying noise catches his attention. Billy's laser sight scans the immediate area, his footsteps coming slow and deliberate. After a few tense moments, Billy found his target crouched against a shelf and shivering.

"A bunny?" Billy says, puzzled. "I got nervous because of a bunny?" The former Marine hunches down on his knees. "Come here, little fella. Come here. I'm not gonna hurt ya."

A small, white rabbit hops towards Billy. Its nose twitches and hops into Billy's outstretched hands.

"Now, aren't you cutest little thing. Jill's gonna freak when she sees you, isn't that right…girl?" Billy sits the rabbit on his shoulder, finding her to be small enough to sit there without any problems. She nuzzles his neck. "Now, where did you come from?"

A loud banging noise snaps Billy's attention away from the small bunny. He sets her down on of numerous shelves.

"Stay," Billy orders. The rabbit seemed to understand the command and sat stock-still. "More obedient than my German shepherd ever was, that's for sure."

The Marine steps through the dark aisles, making sure not to get lost. The banging noise comes again, giving Billy the direction he needed. He races through the aisles and finds a man, or woman, trying to bring down one of the shelves but to no avail.

"Excuse me, but can I help you, sir?" Billy asks. "Or ma'am?"

The head of the person banging the shelf down turns towards Billy. The Marine readies his rifle and prepares to fire. A balding head, gray skin, and lopsided face told Billy all he knew. A single shot at the base of the zombie's neck dislocated its head from its body. For good measure, Billy slammed the butt of his rifle into the zombie's chest and stomped on its head.

"Now, let's see who you were." Billy digs through the corpse's body and finds a pair of dog tags, a lighter, and a pack of cigarettes. "Sorry, Dan, but you me five bucks." Billy digs again and finds the zombie's wallet and takes out fifty-dollar bill. "And that was over ten days ago, so considered your debt repaid."

Billy pockets the bill, and lights up a cigarette. "I've been devoid of cigarettes for two months. I earned this!" He takes a long drag and exhales slowly. "Well, this was fun." He flicks the cigarette onto the fallen Dan. "Thanks again, buddy."

He turns back towards the entrance, to find the white rabbit at his feet. It climbs up his pant leg, and hops to his shoulder. Billy gives it a reassuring pat on the head and rubs underneath its chin.

"If you're gonna follow me, you're gonna need a name," Billy contemplates. "How 'bout I call you Rebecca?" The rabbit seemed to nod in agreement. "All right, Rebecca it is."

Billy stepped slowly through the rest of library, trying not to discourage the rabbit on his shoulder in case they encounter something other than the undead.

Jill's door led into a wardrobe closet of sorts. She found a blue windbreaker better suited for her figure and switched out for Leon's. She tied the beat-up, worn jacket around her waist. The riot gun sweeps the room as Jill walks deeper and deeper into the closet, finding it to be one of the biggest closets she's ever seen in real life. Granted there was Chris' but it was filled with ammunition for high-grade weapons.

"Hello? And what do we have here?"

Jill came to a chest drilled into the floor. Instinctively, Jill pulled out a small black case from her back pocket and opened it up, dropping Leon's jacket. Various chrome tools were arranged in the case, and resembled dentist tools.

"What secrets do you hide?" Jill asks the wooden box. "Be a good little boy and say 'ah'."

Jill takes out a tool with a straight point, and a one with a curved hook. She jams them into the box's lock and tampers. Seconds pass, the only sound that of the lock's tumblers being opened. A final click resounded in Jill's ears.

"Bingo," she whispers. She kicks the top of the box open and she smiles wide. "Oh, yeah."

Jill eagerly digs in the box, pulling out a grenade launcher with a full clip, and extra rounds for her Magnum. Jill squealed with delight with holding the powerful weapon in her hands. She then found a strap for it and holstered the launcher around her shoulder. She headed for the door, adjusting the shotgun in her hands.

"The things a girl needs to accessorize these days," Jill mutters, grabbing the doorknob.

Leon heard the squeals of the delight of woman acquiring a powerful weapon. He smiled, imagining Jill jumping and down like a child on Christmas morning. Clearing his thoughts, he examined the cramped room he decided to take. It looked like someone was living in here, possibly someone out of the Marines from the lack of anything, except a small bed, a single poster, and a desk with barely anything on it, save for a computer.

Leon sits down at the desk and boots the computer up. After going through its animation of start up and its login screen present, Leon didn't know what to do next.

"Damn it!" he shouted. "Passwords I can do, but a username is something different." Leon scoped out the rest of the room and found an ID tag imbedded into one of the ridges on the monitor. "How best can you serve me, Sgt. Daniel Olivera, head of Special Projects? Wonder if he's related to Carlos."

Leon types in "Olivera, Daniel" in the username slot and presses the tab key. He quickly types in "Biohazard" and hits enter. A red warning screen pops up, blaring "Incorrect password."

"You wanna be difficult, Mr. Computer?" Leon taunts. "I can be difficult."

Leon next types in "Move Zig", causing the red warning to appear again. "All Your Base" was entered, and the warning blared again. After trying unsuccessfully to come up with a password, ranging from "4 Itchy Tasty" to "Master of Unlocking", Leon slammed his fists on the desk in frustration. Then he noticed what the paper depicted: a blown up security camera photo of Jill in her S.T.A.R.S. uniform, possibly before her team was deployed to search for Bravo Team.

"If this don't work, I herby quit," Leon sighs. "Jill Sandwich."

A green sign pops up, saying "Password Accepted." Leon smiles contently. He scrolls through the computer's files and finds a document titled "Biohazard." Leon double clicks on it, bringing up a Microsoft Word document.

"And just what do we have here? 'If you are reading this, then it means that the virus has spread beyond our control and the infection has spread to the town above. We tried our best to halt their progress, but their regenerative abilities are far too great. I only hope that whoever comes knows how to deal with these things'. Yeah, they do."

Leon scrolls past much of the text, finding it to be boring and tedious.

"My God, it's like reading an online strategy guide. Oh, here we go! 'The Tyrant we recovered from the Caliban Cove facility showed signs of heavy damage from the interference of the S.T.A.R.S. team that invaded it shortly after the mansion incident. Its base programming was still intact, but its body would require extensive reconstructive surgery. After moving it down and injecting it with the Veronica virus, its body began to show signs of additional mutation. It could regenerate from otherwise fatal wounds and appeared to shrug off similar attacks.

'With an infusion of DNA from the strange creature presented to us by Mr. S, the Tyrant's powers began to really change. Its claw could now absorb the genetic information and material from other beings with any strand of our viruses. After detonating a section of its face with an acid bomb, when it started absorbing the genetic material of several of our infected personnel, we were able to put it back in its tube and keep it heavily sedated. We fear that should it awaken, its hyper-immune system will counter the heavy sedatives and break free.' The Nemesis coming up the elevator shaft. This is really bad news."

Billy found a small duffle bag inside the vast library and dumped the white rabbit in it. Rebecca's head poked out of the small opening, seemingly analyzing its surroundings. Billy's rifle swept down numerous aisles, ready to blow away anything else that ever came in his path.

"Keep your cool, Coen," Billy mutters. "The last thing you need to do is panic."

The ex-Marine came to the end of the library. A stone wall stood in his way. Slightly disappointed, Billy turned around and stopped. A thunderous shaking noise was felt beneath his feet. Out from the floor, erupted heavy chunks of wood and bookcases. The Tyrant had found him.

"Ah, crap," Billy mutters. "Well, come on, let's get this over with."

The Tyrant roars and charges. Billy takes aim with the rifle and fires at the monstrosity's chest. Chunks of flesh explode from the impact but it doesn't even slow it down. Billy clicks the rifle into auto-fire mode and fires rapidly around its pulsating heart. The Tyrant grunts in frustration and continues towards Billy, smashing through anything in its path. The rifle clicks empty. Before Billy could reload it, he felt an inhuman fist around his neck. The Tyrant easily lifted him up and reeled back its claw.

"Chew on this, you mutant bastard!" Billy shouts. He unsheathes his knife and plunges it into the Tyrant's eye, and twists. The Umbrella creature shrieks in pain, vile blood flowing from its wound. Billy boots the monster in its face and yanks the knife out. He falls to the ground and draws his TMP. "This'll shut you up!"

The TMP's 50-shot clip empties into the Tyrant's chest, chewing away the tender flesh around its heart. Once the modified sub-machine gun was empty, Billy smashed the butt of his rifle into the Tyrant's heart and pushed back towards its entry point. The beast was still in too much pain to realize what was happening, until it plunged back down to the tenth floor.

Seeing the creature fade out of view, Billy reloaded his weapons and had himself another cigarette. He checked on the rabbit, finding it not to badly shaken up.

"How you doin', Becky?" he asks the bunny. She responds with a twitch of her nose. "Yeah, me too. Let's get outta here." Billy exhales, creating a small path of smoke to the door.


	17. Analysis

Leon stared blankly at the computer screen before him. He went through various files about Umbrella's take over of the facility and various additions to the floors to make it more like their destroyed mansion and other headquarters. As Leon printed out a copy of the facility, the door into the small room opened. On first instinct, he grabbed the shotgun and turned around to face a shocked Jill Valentine.

"Nice to see you too," Jill says, wide-eyed and her hands up.

"Sorry," Leon replies, placing the shotgun down. "What's up?"

"I thought you'd want your jacket back." She unties the item in question from her waist and hands it to Leon.

"Thanks."

"Whatcha lookin' at?"

"Just a bunch of stuff about this place since Umbrella took over." Leon hits a couple keys. "Seems they were experimenting with stuff other than mutant zombies and abominations against nature."

"Sounds cool," says another voice. Jill and Leon turn to see Billy puffing on a cigarette.

"Those thing'll kill you, y'know," Jill reprimands.

"Maybe, but I've been smoke free for two months and this is my reward." He looks at Leon. "I see you've found Danny's password."

"Wasn't hard," Leon replies, pointing to Jill's security camera photo.

"Why does this guy have a picture of me on his wall?" Jill asks Billy.

"In my spare time I like to check out the Umbrella security tapes we have on deck," Billy answers, stamping out his smoke, "and one of 'em involved you gearing up for your ill-fated mission. Next thing I know, I'm printin' out all these pictures of you and handing them out to every guy in this facility."

"Let me guess, they were all nerds," Leon says.

"Yep, some geeks too. They have a Dungeons&Dragons game every Thursday night."

A white fluffy head pokes its way out of Billy's bag. Jill's eyes widen and looks at the furry visitor.

"Aw, aren't you the cutest thing?" she coos. "Yes, you are. Yes, you are."

Billy and Leon share a look of complete puzzlement. Jill pulls the white rabbit out of the bag and cradles it in her arms. She pets it and talks to it in nonsense syllables.

"You had a pet rabbit when you were younger, didn't you?" Leon asks, already knowing the answer.

Jill suddenly becomes serious. "Uh…yeah, I did." She turns to Billy. "What's her name?"

"Rebecca," Billy replies. "Just found her and an old friend of yours, but he won't be getting up anytime soon."

"I see." Jill turns her attention back to the rabbit, rubbing it under its chin. "What's this?" She found a small tag on Rebecca's neck. "Looks like a bunch of numbers."

"Let's see if they have any significance," Leon says, turning to the computer screen. Jill sets the bunny next to the keyboard and obediently sits still. Leon looks at the tag and mutters the numbers off as he types them in. A screen popped up. "And what do we have here?"

The screen displayed a three-dimensional view of a rabbit, along with its organs and skeletal structure. Leon scrolls through it, not finding anything of interest, until a big block of blue text illuminated his face.

"This looks interesting. 'Our latest experiment in using the T-Virus has led us to try something different. Taking some incentive from Captain Albert Wesker, formerly of S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team, we found a test subject willing to have us inject him with a direct infusion of the T-Virus. We didn't get his name but he left shortly after the injection and we can only guess what side effects he may be suffering. Next came inspiration of a different sort. If a direct injection of the virus could yield radically different results, could the same be said if a subject were injected with a combination of the T and G-Viruses.' Umbrella trying something different. Unbelievable."

"Well, they did try doing noble endeavors for all mankind, remember?" Jill states. "What else does it say?"

"'Upon injecting the mixture into various text subjects, only one breed of animal delivered exceptional results: the average rabbit.'" Leon pats the bunny on its head. "'The injected rabbits were found to have increased intelligence, complete resistance to the various viruses we developed, and could understand human speech in five different languages. Should the higher-ups gain this knowledge, there's no telling how far they'd pervert what we accomplished. I only hope at least one manages to escape this place.'"

"That's it?" Billy asks.

"That's it," Leon replies. He turns to face the others. "I suggest we scope this place out before we blow it up. Might find something here to really incriminate Umbrella, because I doubt a simple Microsoft Word document will get us very far."

"Got that right," Billy says. "I think we should check out the rest of this floor then double back to the reactor and set it on overload."

"Gotta blow something up, right?" Jill adds.

Rebecca hops from the desk to the cot and scratches at the section of wall below the Jill picture. Billy smacks the butt of his rifle against the wall that caught the rabbit's interest. After the fifth smack, a section of wall gave way. Rebecca squeezes through the small hole and pulls something out with her teeth.

"What is it?" Leon asks.

"It's a metal box of sorts," Billy answers. He takes the box from the rabbit and points it at Jill. "Hmm, locked."

"We'll have to do something about that," Jill replies, smiling deviously. She pulls out her lock picks and digs into the box's lock. "Gotcha!"

The lid opens with a creak, causing the group to look in awe. Rebecca crawls onto Billy's shoulder to share in the gawking.

"It's…beautiful," Leon states simply.

"Wow…" Jill whispers.

"Truer words were never spoken," Billy says. "Small problem, where's the weapon that fires it?"

Leon takes the item in wonder, a high-grade shell for a rocket launcher, and sticks it in Billy's bag. "And _that_ is precisely why we're checking this floor out."

Wesker sat at a computer terminal in the facility's monitoring room. With a few simple key presses, he managed to deactivate the auto-guns and open up the doors in the tunnels. He wasn't in the mood to make it easy for the three intruders. He had a score to settle with Valentine, he intended for Coen to live up to Chambers' lie, but Kennedy had been a bonus. From what Wesker knew of the rookie cop, he had managed to get Redfield's sister and Birkin's brat out of Raccoon before it blew up, and he struck a nerve with him.

_For a guy without my kind of power, he certainly kept me on my toes, _Wesker thought. _Might give Krauser a run for his money._

He gave a once-over on the latest video feeds. He saw Coen take down the Tyrant with nothing more than a knife and rifle. Wesker knew he just got lucky and the "perfect life-form" wouldn't stay down for long. The next feed he saw made his blood turn to ice: the Nemesis was stomping through a few levels of the facility, following Wesker's trail.

"The bastards actually put me on that thing's hit list?" Wesker thought aloud. "There's got to be some way to get it to follow Valentine, but how?"

Before the answer came to him, the Nemesis was grabbed by something _through the floor_ and dragged below. The former S.T.A.R.S. captain rewound the tape and slowed it down, causing a grin to etch its way across his pale face.

"Tyrant," he spoke softly.


	18. Versus

**Author's Notes: **Well, I'm glad you guys are still enjoying this story, despite the weirdness of adding a bunny. Not sure where that came from. If you guys thought the Nemesis/Tyrant fight was a gyp, I hope this makes it up to you.

* * *

Nemesis shook off the initial impact of being dragged through the floor, but was otherwise all right. It looked around, finding the creature that tried to impale it before. Tyrant looked down on the Nemesis, finding it to be a disgusting waste of flesh, and thought it to be one of the few humans it could hear while in its prison. Nemesis glared at the taller creation, finding it to be nothing more than a weakling without its massive claw.

"Staaaaaarrrrrsssss…" Nemesis hissed.

Something triggered in Tyrant's mind, a delayed program of sorts. Before its eyes, Tyrant saw a complete detailed analysis of its opponent including an interesting directive to eliminate specific human targets. A few were checked off, except the one it wanted to kill: the arrogant human that somehow triggered its "anti-kill" protocol. Tyrant knew what to do now, as disgusting as it seemed, and that was to absorb the other Tyrant-class creature into it.

Nemesis charged at Tyrant, its fist ready to break its enemy in half. Tyrant was ready with its heavy claw. The serrated blades slammed through Nemesis fist. The heavily-muscled creature struggled to free itself, but found it to be quite difficult. The tentacles imbedded in the Tyrant's claw burst through Nemesis' arm and proceeded to wrap around it.

"_Staaaaaarrrrrsssss!_" Nemesis roared. With a might bellow, Nemesis pried its fist free, taking several of Tyrant's tentacles with it. Nemesis knew its arm would not be of any use for the rest of the fight, but that didn't matter. This creature dared to stand in the way of its mission, and Nemesis could not allow that.

Tyrant's serpent tongue fired at the smaller Tyrant, wrapping around its neck. Confused and angered, Nemesis struggled to get the wretched thing off. Tyrant lifted Nemesis up, barely straining the muscles in its serpentine tongue, and slammed it down on the ground. Nemesis' body rocked the floor, splintering the heavy stone of the shooting range.

With a growl of effort, Tyrant flung Nemesis into the far wall. The heavier Tyrant busted it, leaving its impression. Tyrant charged for it, the tentacles in its claw bursting forth. Nemesis glowered at the incoming beast and grabbed its menacing talons.

"_Staaaaaarrrrrsssss!" _Nemesis roared furiously. With an inhuman scream, Nemesis ripped the confused Tyrant's claw out of its hand and crushed it with its bare hands.

Tyrant roared in pain, its primary weapon now gone. Nemesis dropped itself from the wall and slammed its powerful, meaty fist deep into Tyrant's chest. The taller creature screamed in agony, just as another strike sank into its vulnerable heart. Tyrant dropped to its knees and then had its face kicked in by Nemesis' massive foot.

"Stars!" Nemesis grunts, taking Tyrant by its shoulder. With a loud grunt, Nemesis hoisted Tyrant above its head and busted the de-clawed creature's back on its knee.

Tyrant moaned in its defeat, but Nemesis wasn't sticking around to bask in its victory. It had better things to do and it picked up the scent of one of its targets.

"Jiiiiilllllll," Nemesis hissed, smashing through the remains of the shooting range.

Tyrant was left alone, its regenerative powers working in overtime just to keep it alive. It didn't understand why it lost to the behemoth and he didn't have much time to dwell on such thoughts. Tyrant could feel another presence in the room, obviously drawn to the grunts and roars of the titanic creatures engaging in battle. Two creatures shambled toward the fallen Tyrant, each a sickly white.

Information flickered in Tyrant's eyes, identifying them as "Iron Maidens." Some strange creature Umbrella devised utilizing their cloning technologies to replicate the parasitic creature who's DNA was handed to them. Although information was incomplete on them, Tyrant knew one thing: after absorbing them, it would be back on its feet.

Tyrant fired its Licker-tongue at the closest Iron Maiden and drew it towards its mouth. Tyrant's jaw unhinged enough to swallow the creature whole and the result was instantaneous. Tyrant's broken body was completely healed, except its claw had not regenerated yet. The second Iron Maiden slowly backed away from the taller creature, but eventually met the same fate as the first.

Tyrant licked its lips in triumph. After a few seconds, its body became racked with pain. Its body expanded, its muscles exploded, turning it into a massive beast reminiscent of the Nemesis. Tyrant roared, when suddenly, its claw grew back with sharper talons than ever. Its normal hand also bared claws and a serrated edge than from its wrist to its elbow. Metallic spikes sprouted out of its back, and Tyrant could feel that its teeth had become jagged fangs.

That's when it realized how this transformation came to be. The Licker it absorbed had the ability to mutate when it devoured fresh flesh and blood, but what confused the Tyrant was it absorbed two previously dead creatures…or did it? New information penetrated its brain, revealing that the Iron Maidens were still alive when experimented on and weren't dead in the conventional sense.

Tyrant smiled maliciously, knowing it now possessed far greater regenerative powers than its abominable cousin, but the smile quickly faded when it realized its "anti-kill" protocol was still intact. Grunting in dismay, Tyrant smashed through the wall Nemesis slammed into. Its hunting instinct was greatly increased now that its Licker DNA had mutated, and could smell the presence of three humans close by.


	19. Infestation

The undead combed through the remains of their former city. The pungent smell of death was all around them but they didn't care. All it meant that there was no fresh meat. After devouring as much of their flaming brethren, until the police station collapsed, the zombies shambled through the town. Suddenly, they could smell fresh meat amongst them. They stumbled to the source in droves.

Wesker looked at the incoming sight with a slight smile. He adjusts his sunglasses and takes out a small hand grenade. The former S.T.A.R.S. captain hurls the grenade into the head of the closest zombie, causing the pin to eject. Five seconds later, the grenade explodes. Guts and blood fall just short of Wesker's pristine boots.

"If you want a meal, you horror movie rejects, just try and catch me!" Wesker shouts.

He takes off at a full run, the zombies in hot pursuit. Wesker barges into an office building and comes to three elevators. He presses the down button five times and the up button six times. A red light comes on above the center elevator and opens. He looks back to see the zombies piling in. Wesker pulls out a pack of smokes and lights one up with a lighter engraved with a snake.

"Time for three of the biggest pains in my ass to get reacquainted with some friends of theirs," Wesker mutters. He presses a button on the inside of the elevator and the floor drops out. "Let's see just how smart you pukes are."

Nemesis found itself staring at the massive holes in the floor and ceiling. It could detect Jill Valentine's scent, but was confused with which way to go since the air currents were jumbling the smell with several other scents. Nemesis grunted in frustration and jumped across the Tyrant-sized hole. Its massive fists hooked onto the outer rim of the hole and struggled to keep itself from falling. With a growl of effort, Nemesis lifted itself onto the other side. Looking around, it found the hole in the wall the Tyrant threw it through and another hole in the ceiling.

Nemesis had better things to do tonight than wonder about holes in ceilings. It needed to find Valentine and Wesker and kill them. The other targets on its list, to Nemesis' dismay, weren't here and would have to find other means to track them. Nemesis came to a fork in the hallway. Each one lead to a set of stairs, but one went up and the other down. Nemesis inhales deeply and takes the hallway that leads up.

"Jiiiillll," Nemesis hisses.

The loud grunting and roaring Billy, Jill, and Leon heard suddenly died down. Huddled out in the hall, their shotguns and rifle at the ready. When the loud noises didn't resume, they moved further down the hallway. Rebecca perched herself on Jill's shoulder and seemed to scan the doors as she did.

"What do you think that was all about?" Billy asks Leon.

"Sounded like two animals fighting over something," he responded. "Maybe the Tyrant and Nemesis were having it out."

"That can't be true…can it?" Jill adds. "I mean, they're Umbrella's creatures, right?"

"Well, you said that bladed thing attacked the Nemesis, so maybe they just don't like each other." Billy comes to a door and gives it a solid kick. "What do you think is beyond here?"

"Let's find out." Jill approaches the door and bends down. Rebecca jumps from her shoulder to Leon's. She pulls out her lock picks and gets to work, until…"Shit!"

"What is it?" Leon asks.

"This door has a special key," Jill spits back.

"You mean to tell me that we need to backtrack, encounter what possibly made that noise, and get back here just to open a door?" Billy asks.

"Yeah, basically," Jill replies.

"Screw this!" Leon shouts. He aims his shotgun at the doorknob, causing Jill to move back, and fires. The lock blows off the door and it swings open. "That was easy."

"You got that right." Billy goes into the room first and uses his rifle's sight to find a light switch. Florescent light flickers above. "Nothin' much here, 'cept that gun safe over there."

"Maybe it has something of value," Jill says, examining the safe. "Too bad I never learned how to crack a safe."

"Why's there a computer attached to it?" Billy asks.

"Probably an electronic password or something," Jill states.

"Let's see then." Leon presses the on switch on the small computer welded into the safe. A slight smile comes to his face.

Jill looks over his shoulder to see the screen. "'In AD 2101, war was beginning'," she reads. "Uh…okay."

"What happen?" Leon types.

"Somebody set up us the bomb," the computer replies.

"We get signal."

"What!"

"Main screen turn on."

Billy and Jill look at each other, confused and puzzled, and even more so with Leon acting like he knows what he's doing.

"It's you!" the computer answers back.

"How are you gentlemen. All your base are belong to us. You are on the way to destruction," Leon types.

"What you say!" the computer types back.

"You cannot survive make your time. Ha Ha Ha Ha…"

"Take off every Zig."

"Move Zig."

"You know what you doing."

"For great justice."

With a hydraulic hiss, the safe opens. Leon stands up and smiles.

"And what do we have here?" The government agent reaches into the safe and pulls out a large metallic object with four open slots and a trigger.

Jill's grin stretches across her face. "That's a S.T.A.R.S. issue quad bazooka! Cool!"

"What else is in there?" Billy asks.

Leon pulls out another rocket launcher that can only be used once. He checks the weapon and finds it to be empty. He looks to Billy, who immediately pulls out the rocket shell they found earlier, and throws it to Leon. With the heavy weapon armed, Leon slings it over his back, and Billy does the same with the quad launcher. The ex-Marine's boots seem to sink into the hard floor.

"Anything for me?" Jill asks like a little kid on Christmas. Leon simply points to the grenade launcher resting on her shoulder. She looks at it, and replies with, "Yeah, but you can't be too careful."

"I'll check," Leon says dryly. He digs around the safe and pulls out a few extra shells for his rocket launcher, some shotgun shells, and a flamethrower.

"I think I'll pass," Jill says. "I already feel like a pack mule."

Leon looks to Billy. "Coin toss?"

"Sure." Billy pulls out a small medal, a gold eagle on side and a silver wolf on the other. "Call it, eagle or wolf." He flips the medal into the air.

"Wolf," Leon says.

The coin bounces on the floor and spins on its axis before landing flat.

"Wolf," Billy states, nodding. "Put it to good use, dude."

"Yeah, lucky me." Leon slings the flamethrower over his shoulder and adjusts the shotgun sticking out of his jacket. "I just hope we don't have to use this stuff."

The trio look at each other in turn and burst into laughter.

"Good one, Leon!" Jill exclaims.

Tyrant busted through wall after wall on the ninth floor, tracking the Nemesis' foul smell. Its beefy frame could not only withstand Nemesis' raw, brute force but also return it in kind. What Tyrant found interesting was that despite its muscular build, its speed had increased. A matter for another time, but it had an abomination to absorb. Tyrant smashed into a small corridor, lit with sickly green light. It turned to see Albert Wesker, smoking a cigarette.

"Why, hello there," Wesker says. He removes the cig from his mouth and flicks it away. "I see you've found me. Care to do something about it?"

Tyrant roars in retaliation and charges for the former S.T.A.R.S. captain. Tyrant's jagged talons stop just short of Wesker's face, and the beast can't bring itself to move. Wesker effortlessly bats the massive claw out of his way and walks away from the paralyzed creature.

"I know you want to kill me but you just can't," Wesker taunts, absently rubbing at his chest. "You're just gonna have to settle for the others and your sparring partner, but if you're in the mood to do some killin', I suggest you try this guys."

Wesker pulls a small device out of his left pocket and presses its single red button. Yellow lights come on above the Tyrant's head and the wall before it opens. A horde of zombies pile through, taking Tyrant out of its paralysis. The creature takes a swipe with its mighty claw, severing the bodies of several of the undead in its way.

Wesker watches with a degree of amusement. He lights up another cigarette and opens the devices casing. Spotting a blue button towards the bottom of the device, Wesker pushes it and smiles evilly. The Tyrant roars in pain as a high-powered electric current rips through its body. Its flesh burns and melts away before finally collapsing to the floor.

"Can't let you have all the fun," Wesker says. "Gotta save some for your friends." Wesker gives a few solid taps to the wall opposite the one Tyrant burst through, and a panel swings open. Before the zombie horde charges for him, Wesker ducks through the hidden door and closes it.


	20. Untitled

"Bill…Bill…Bill…Bob…Mikey…Vinnie…Paul…Bill…Bill…Rick…This is pointless." Billy drops the X-rays in his hands on the floor. "Tell me again why we're doing this?"

Jill sighs in frustration and drops a folder full of papers on a battered desk. "We need to dig up some dirt on this place about it being used by Umbrella so the government can launch a full-scale investigation on it and shut 'em down for good."

"Oh, right." Billy digs through a file cabinet. "So where's Mr. Agent Man?"

"Not sure," Jill says. "I've only met him twice before this, so I really don't know what he's up to." She picks up the folder she was looking at and scans through the papers. "Hello, and what do we have here?"

"Found something juicy, did you?" Billy turns from the cabinet and stands behind Jill as she sits at the desk she situated herself at. Rebecca the rabbit hops onto the one area of the unoccupied by papers and sits quietly.

"It seems that Umbrella's stock was selling like hotcakes during the 'cannibalism' attacks in the Arklay Mountains in July and again in August when the outbreak spread to the city." Jill shuffles through a few papers. "According to this, all the stock was bought outright by a man calling himself…Mr. S."

"Mr. S, huh? Sounds like he's loaded." Billy turns towards the filing cabinet and shuffles through a few more papers. "Any chance we can use that?"

"Further down the line, Umbrella was bought out completely…just after Raccoon was incinerated." Jill sets the papers down and stands up, the rabbit eagerly jumping onto on her left shoulder.

"Meaning?" Billy asks.

"Meaning the reason Umbrella's stock plummeted was because it no longer existed," Jill explains. "That means…"

"Someone else is pulling the strings," Billy finishes. "The question is who?"

* * *

Saddler found the view from his castle quite enlightening. His drones did his bidding without hesitation and he could easily crush them if he so wanted. His intricately crafted staff glistens in the dim light of his private chamber, a soft wind blows past him, and he thinks to himself:

_What does that fool want now?_

The door to his chamber opens and the muscular bearded man enters. He stands a respective distance away from Saddler and bows.

"What do you want , Mendez?" Saddler asks, somewhat angrily.

"Forgive the intrusion, milord," Mendez replies. "But I thought that you would like to know that one of our…studious employees has suddenly gone missing."

"Sera," Saddler spits. "Find him…now!" Mendez gets up to leave, but suddenly feels compelled to stay. "Keep him alive. His life may still be of use to us…when the President sends someone to look for his precious daughter."

Mendez leaves, his thick, heavy boots marking his exit. Saddler cradles a small vial in his hand and smiles evilly.

"It's all falling into place."

* * *

Leon knocks over a small box containing several papers. Nothing much there but several invoices and acquisition forms at the consent of the U.S. Army. Finding a similar, but larger, box, Leon gruffly opens it and digs through it.

"Let's see what we got here," Leon mutters. "I have a file here? Let's see what Umbrella has on me." He skims through his information, the features on his face relaxing. "Wow, these guys are good, even got my shoe size. Who else is in here? Chris, Claire, Rebecca, Billy, Steve, whoever that is, Jill…"

He takes a quick look around the small office he found two doors from Jill's wardrobe closet, as she called it. Feeling slightly guilty, he takes a look through her file. He felt a slight attraction to Jill but he didn't know why he never acted on it.

'_Course you know why you don't ask her out. Chris will put that prized shotgun of his against your head and pull the trigger if you make a move on "his woman"…or his sister._

"Where'd that come from?" Leon asks himself. "Hmm, let's see. Arrest record, weapon of choice, known family, and what do we have here?" Leon pulls out a long sheet of paper that depicts Jill in her infamous tube top and miniskirt brandishing a rocket launcher on her shoulders. "Whoa…"

He puts the picture away and digs through the box some more. Finding nothing but files and dossiers of anyone involved with Umbrella's nightmares. He closes the box and looks around. A loud banging noise immediately gets his attention.

"What now?" Leon mutters. He picks up his rocket launcher resting against a wall and slings it across his shoulder, and snags his flamethrower off the floor. He ties to his belt and draws his shotgun. "Let's see what the pizza guy wants."

With a firm kick, he exits the tiny office and walks down the hall to the single door at the end. He comes to a door on his left and gives it a few solid knocks. The knocks are returned and Leon continues down the hall. He takes aim with the shotgun, waiting for the heavy door to burst open. A loud roar comes from the other side and the steel door explodes off its hinges and smashes to the floor.

"_Staaaaaarrrrrrrsssssss!_" Nemesis roared.

Leon aims at the creature's head and fires. Nemesis shrugs the attack off and rushes forward. Leon sheathes the shotgun and readies the flamethrower. He unscrews the gas tank and hurls it at the charging Tyrant. Nemesis grabs the tank and stares at dumbfound. Leon draws his handgun, takes aim, and fires. The tank erupts in flames, followed by the putrid smell of charred flesh. The smoke clears as the door right behind Leon opens, and Jill and Billy flood the hall.

"Hi, guys," Leon says, readying his shotgun. He gives it a quick pump.

"Nice day for a barbecue, huh?" Billy states, taking aim with his rifle.

Jill draws her Magnum and directs it at the Nemesis' charbroiled head. "You certainly know how to go big, Mr. Kennedy."

Nemesis roars loud enough to cause the hallway to shudder. A barrage of rifle ammo, shotgun shells, and Magnum rounds impact the Umbrella abomination around its remaining eye. It grunts in pain and falls back through the door it came in. The sound of twisted metal and heavy thuds comes through the stairwell below, followed by a sickening crunch.

Billy turns to Leon. "I think we've overstayed our welcome here. What do you think?"

"I believe so, Hank," Leon replies. "Let's blow it up and get outta here."

* * *

Tyrant's eyes open, having most of its skin grown back. The massive beast stands and its body immediately regenerates its burned skin. With a crack of its neck, Tyrant looks around. Its target has fled and had nothing better to slay with its enhanced claws. Tyrant growls and heads down the corridor. It leads to another junction, and Tyrant takes it. The connecting hallway floods into an aquarium of sorts. The room is surrounded by a wrap-around glass dome. Empty canisters float in the clear blue water, along with abnormal-sized fish. Tyrant gazes at the infected aquatic denizens of the deep, finding the massive sharks interesting.

Tyrant continues on its way, not wanting to do waste its valuable time with creatures that can't breath outside their cages. Its pace slows and comes to a stop. Tyrant hears something approaching. A guttural growl reverberates through the aquarium, and the toad-like Hunter charges at the Tyrant's back. With a grunt, Tyrant's steel spikes extend through its back and impale the green creature. The Hunter groans in pain but its cries go unheard as it slides into Tyrant's back. Tyrant's body opens up and swallows the Hunter whole.

Tyrant roars in pain, feeling its body mutate even further. A serrated blade-like fin pokes through its back, the claws on its "human" hand extend, and the ridge across its forearm sharpens and extends. Tyrant growls in amusement and heads back the other way, for its pathway was blocked by a massive steel wall, and it didn't feel like ripping through Umbrella-grade titanium at the moment.


	21. Regroup

Wesker surveyed his latest staging ground: a multi-tiered boiling room. Numerous catwalks and pipes decorated the vast room, creating the perfect atmosphere to be rid of Kennedy, Valentine, and Coen. He found the ex-Marine and the Special Forces agent annoying at best, but Valentine was the biggest thorn in his side.

She was supposed to die along with the rest of the Alphas and Bravos at the dreaded mansion in the forest, but she escaped with the help of the cowardly Brad Vickers and Redfield destroying the Tyrant with Wesker's personal rocket launcher. She was then supposed to be killed again by Umbrella's latest Tyrant variant, the Nemesis. Somehow she destroyed the vile thing using Umbrella's latest weapon, a high-powered laser cannon. Too bad it went up with the rest of Raccoon.

"Your luck ends here, Jill," Wesker mutters. "It may not be as satisfying as killing Redfield, but you're two friends should more than compensate for his absence." He takes out his lighter and a cigarette and lights up.

The former S.T.A.R.S. captain found Redfield's smoking habit to be disgusting, but since he's been injected with a pure infusion of the T-Virus by the Tyrant he released, he no longer had to fear from dying off from nicotine. Being an enhanced human with increased strength, durability, and a body that could never get sick tended to do that. Besides, shortly after gaining his superhuman abilities, the scars in his chest from the Tyrant impalement were gone in a matter of days.

* * *

Billy puffed absently on his "cancer stick", as Jill called it, staring at the computer monitor before him. The genetically enhanced rabbit was perched above the monitor, looking down at Billy with an inquisitive gleam in her eyes. Leon kept himself busy by going over some of the maps he printed out. Jill was sprawled out on the floor, sleeping.

"You find anything of interest yet?" Leon asks quietly.

Billy puts out his cigarette. "No, not yet, but I do have some bad news." He quickly turns his head towards Leon. "Don't wake Jill."

Leon slowly makes his way to Billy's computer. The ex-Marine hits a few keys and an image pops up. The screen depicts a stairwell, a bland hallway, and a good sized dent in the floor.

"It's gone," Leon whispers.

"But where is what I wanna know." Billy hits a few more keys, a grim expression coming across his face. "You'd think that that something that big could just get up and start walking around without us noticing."

"I know what you mean, and we haven't run into Wesker for a while," Leon points out. "Think he's still here?"

"Of course. A guy like that? He ain't leavin' until the job is done or he's dead." Billy turns the computer off and stands up. Rebecca hops onto his shoulder and holds tight. "Better wake Sleeping Beauty."

The two guys looked down at the sleeping Jill. Nervousness evident on their faces, since they knew there was no easy way of doing this. Jill had finally gotten a chance to sleep after coming to this godforsaken place and neither one of them wanted to on the receiving end of her Magnum or her grenade launcher.

"She's had, what, 15 minutes?" Billy says.

"Yeah, I'm sure she won't mind another 15," Leon adds. "How would Chris do this?"

"He'd let her sleep, that's what he would do."

"Good point." Leon picks up his handgun and shotgun and holsters them accordingly. "I'll be back in a bit."

"Where're you going?" Billy asks.

"We want out, right?" Leon says rhetorically. "I'm gonna check the nuclear power plant, see if I can't get the thing to overload and explode, and then we are outta here."

"Gotcha. I'll stay here, keep an eye on things. When Jill wakes up, we'll come for ya." Billy and Leon slam their fists together. Leon was almost on his way up the stairs when Billy called out: "Do you know how Rebecca's doing?"

"She's doing fine," Leon answers from the stairwell. "She takes care of my place when I'm away." Leon disappears into the darkness.

"Take care, hotshot," Billy sighs.

* * *

Nemesis stood in the bland hallway. The smell of a closer, more obtainable target piqued its interest. Having its skin burned and its fleshy layers under it being pelted with rapid-fire ammunition would deter even the most hardened killing machines. It tracked the scent of ex-Captain Wesker to this unassuming room. The scent of the vile beast that tried to absorb was here as well, but it was long since gone, its putrid smell going down the only exit to the hallway.

Nemesis examined the busted apart wall, wondering how the scrawny beast he managed to break could possibly slam through it, much less every wall in its path. Nemesis didn't ponder those questions for long, as it began to pound through the massive steel wall before it. Amazingly enough, the Nemesis' thick knuckles bleed and broke against the sheer surface.

The Umbrella killing machine growled in frustration and relentlessly pummeled the steel wall with every fiber of its being, not caring that its regenerative abilities were still trying to grow back its charred skin.

"Wesssskerrrrrrr!" Nemesis howled.

* * *

Within the confines of his new lair, Wesker watched the pathetic creature trying its best to barge its way in. The security monitor before him illuminated his pale features and unreadable face.

"If you the Tyrant, you would already be inside," Wesker said grimly. "Speaking of which, how is my perfect life form doing."

The ex-S.T.A.R.S. captain hit a few buttons on the security console at his recently acquired desk. The beast known simply as Tyrant came into view, looking slightly more different than before.

"Must have absorbed a Hunter," Wesker contemplated, taking note of the serrated fin on its back and the reptilian scales around its shoulders. The massive, hulking creature was transfixed on the shark tank barely onscreen. Last time he checked, Tyrant had moved out of the aquarium. _Must be waiting for a chance to absorb the sharks in there._

"These things are really determined to put me six feet under. Shame they won't get the chance. Now, let's check in with the human factor."

Coen and Valentine came onscreen. The ex-thief was asleep on the floor, with a small white rabbit curled up next to her. Coen had a disassembled shotgun laid out before him. He was busily cleaning it out.

"Hmm, a Striker," Wesker states, identifying the model. "Must've found it after me and Kennedy had it out. Speaking of which."

He tapped a few buttons, bringing Kennedy into view. The government agent was in the nuclear reactor room, looking for something. It didn't take long for Wesker to put it together.

"So, Mr. Kennedy, you intend to nuke the place from within. Shame I can't let that happen, besides…I want my knife back."


	22. Initiation

Leon skulked around the massive power plant. He wasn't exactly sure what to find or what to do to cause the reactor to overload. He saw numerous displays, everything in the green.

"This sucks!" Leon blurts in frustration. "Too bad Rebecca ain't here. She'd know what to do. Wonder what she's doing."

An idea suddenly came to him. Pulling out his cell phone, he discovers that it still could not send a signal. Improvising, Leon draws his newly acquired knife and digs through a computer screen, careful not to touch the wires.

"Cable line, cable line, cable line…" Leon mutters. He spots a thick, black cable and yanks it out. Carefully, he unscrews the antenna of his phone and jams the cable in its place. "Work, damn it!"

Multiple blue bars light up on the phone's display. Leon grins; slightly surprised that such an unorthodox tactic would work. He dials in a number and waits.

"C'mon, Becky, pick up. It's a Thursday night and you don't have friends in D.C."

* * *

Rebecca Chambers sat on the edge of her roommate's sofa, hunched over, carefully analyzing the objective before her. With a cool hand, she takes a small brush and glazes it over the nail of her big toe.

"Stupid polish remover," Rebecca mutters. "Wish it didn't stink." She takes a cloth and wipes away the excess remover, and the raspberry-colored nail polish. "Paint my nails. Nice idea, Claire…too bad I had an allergic reaction to your nail polish. Good thing the swelling went down and I don't have to wear those nurse's shoes anymore. I wonder if Jill ever does anything this girly."

The phone rang, bringing the young ex-S.T.A.R.S. member out of her rant. Perplexed, Rebecca cautiously makes her way to the ringing device since she knew that not a lot of people knew the phone number to the small one-story house. Her oversized T-shirt, emblazoned with RPD in bright blue letters, sways gently to the rhythm of the overhead ceiling fan. She picks up the phone.

"Hello?" she answers cautiously.

"Hey Becky," replies the voice on the other end.

"Leon!" Rebecca exclaims. "What's with the call, roomie?"

Leon sighs loudly on the receiver. "I need to know how to set a nuclear reactor on overload."

"Why?" Rebecca's eyes suddenly light up. "Does this have something to do with that job out west?"

"Yeah, it does. Now about the reactor…"

"Did you run into zombies, or maniacal cowboys, or…"

"Rebecca! How do you set a nuclear reactor on overload?" Leon asks sternly.

"Oh, sorry. What you wanna do is shut off the coolant reservoir. This will cause the reactor to overheat, but I suggest you put it on a timer. Depending on the size of the reactor, it may go up the instant its no longer receiving the coolant."

"Okay, thanks. How's the place?"

"It's doing fine, although I think you may want to spring for a bigger TV."

"Tell me again why you decided to move in with me?"

"I got a job in D.C. and you're the only guy I knew in the area."

A slight pause followed afterward. "Oh, yeah. By the way, Billy and Jill say hi."

Before Rebecca could respond, the line went dead. She stared at the dog tags around her wrist and smiled.

* * *

Leon turned his cell phone off, disconnected the cable line, and reattached the antenna. He gives his neck a few cracks before setting out to find what he needs. He comes to a computer monitor and scrolls through it.

"Okay, here we go: Coolant Systems." Leon gives the keyboard a few presses. "'Do you wish to shut down the coolant system?' Hell, yeah!" He right clicks the nearby mouse, brining up another menu. "Only choice is 5:45 AM. That's dawn! That's in…" Leon looks at his watch. "Four hours! We've been down here for four hours? Where does the time go?"

Leon gives the choice click. A red countdown meter lights up his face. He sighs and turns to the exit. A look of surprise comes across his features. In the pale light, a discolored figure shambles toward him, moaning. Quickly shaking off his disbelief, Leon aims the shotgun at the creature's neck and pulls. The head falls from its shoulder and splats on the ground.

"Just what have you been up to, Albert?" Leon mutters.

* * *

"Our orders were to find a rebel encampment in Africa, but when we got there, there was no rebel encampment. I protested, and next thing I know, I'm knocked out, gunshots fire, and I'm on trial for the execution of 23 civilians. Chris stood up for me, and got booted from the Air Force because of it. Wasn't all bad though. Ran into Becky, had one last shot at being a hero, and met you."

Billy strokes behind the ears of the white rabbit intently listening to him. Rebecca nuzzled her nose against Billy's palm and jumped onto his shoulder.

"That was fun, but to the matter at hand." The ex-Marine takes a look at the reassembled Striker shotgun before him. He picks up a handful of shells and loads them in. "89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, and one more makes a hundred."

Billy gives the shotgun a pump, locking the weapon's ammo in place. A low moaning sound grabs his attention. Billy turns to his left and sees a decomposing man dressed in a basketball uniform. Billy takes aim with the TMP and fires at the base of the thing's neck. The head drops off and splats to the floor with a squishy splat. The small, sub-machine gun clicks empty. Billy absently drops the gun to the floor.

"Decent gun but I wouldn't recommend using it on a single target," comments Billy.

"Yeah, I agree," says a voice from behind Billy. He whirls around, taking aim with the shotgun. Jill stares at the weapon, not a trace of fear on her features. "What is it about me that causes guys to point high-powered guns in my face?"

"Not sure." Billy lowers the weapon and slings the rifle over his shoulder.

"How long was I out?"

"Twenty-five minutes, give or take."

"Where's Leon?"

"He went to the power core, trying to set it on overload. Shoulda been back by now."

Rhythmic moaning and grunting penetrate Jill and Billy's ears. They turn to see a group of about nine to fifteen men dressed in red uniforms and thick helmets.

"The varsity football team," Billy acknowledges. "Always wanted to see 'em play."

Jill raises her riot gun and gives it an affirmative pump. Billy takes aim with the Striker. Resonating booms suddenly fill the communications hub.

* * *

Shotgun blasts reverberate through the cramped hallway. Body parts fall to the floor, bodily fluids spraying the wall, and a determined ex-cop pushes through. Leon ejects the last spent shell from his shotgun and drops it, taking up his handgun.

"Become a Special Forces agent, see the world, relive your first day on the force," Leon grumbles, imitating Bruce Willis. "You coulda gone with Ark, but no. You and Barry had to take a cruise on the _USS Gaiden_, and blow it up, and survive freezing cold waters."

He takes aim at the last zombie in his way, a man, or woman, dressed in a green and black Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service uniform. Taking note of the creature's gun lying limply from its back, Leon fires at the thing's kneecap. It drops to the floor, and gets on the receiving end of Leon's roundhouse kick. The head cracks off the neck, skids across the wall, and splats on the floor.

"Okay…Sarge, let's see what you got." Leon digs through the soldier's ammo belt, finding a few clips for his handgun, and a handful of shotgun shells. "Could be worse. Coulda picked up ammo to a gun I don't have."

"Yeah, that's always a bitch, ain't it?" says a voice echoing through the hall.

Leon whirls around, weapon raised, and sees a pair of dark shades and a malicious grin.


	23. Brawl

Wesker had a reputation for being the "un-fun captain," even before taking command of the Raccoon City S.T.A.R.S. Truth was, he had an understanding of the word fun and crawling through a series of vent ducts and pipes was not fun in the least. He was forced to climb through the pipes since the Nemesis wouldn't leave and he lost track of the Tyrant. He didn't know where Umbrella's most recognizable creation went, but he didn't really care at the moment.

He heard shotgun blasts reverberate through the ducts, followed by a voice he could barely make out. Wesker's muscles pumped hard as he scavenged through the shafts, finding the source of the sound. He hated getting around like this, but since it meant that the three problems to his mission couldn't find him, all the better. Thin rays of light streamed through a grate up ahead. Wesker crawled to it and saw Kennedy, now using his handgun. He appeared to be complaining about something.

"…Had to take a cruise on the _USS Gaiden_, and blow it up, and survive freezing cold waters."

Wesker heard of the cruise ship _Gaiden_, an Umbrella experiment out at sea. News reports say the engine room exploded and it sank almost immediately. There were no survivors, to the contrary.

_Looks like the government dog has a destructive streak, after all_, Wesker thought. He gently raised the grate up and silently jumped to the ground, just in time to see Kennedy drop kick an Umbrella soldier's head off.

"Okay…Sarge, let's see what you got." Leon digs through the soldier's ammo belt, finding a few clips for his handgun, and a handful of shotgun shells. "Could be worse. Coulda picked up ammo to a gun I don't have."

"Yeah, that's always a bitch, ain't it?" Wesker comments, his voice echoing through the hall.

Leon turns around, weapon raised, and stares into the ex-S.T.A.R.S. captain's dark shades and malicious grin.

"Can I help you, 'Captain'?" Leon asks, his gun aimed at Wesker's head.

"I want my knife back," Wesker spits through the gritted teeth of his grin.

"Too bad." Leon fires the gun.

Wesker's grin turns into a face-splitting smile as he dodges the shot, simply by slanting his head to the left. Another shot rings out, aimed at Wesker's chest. The former Umbrella double-agent twists his body just enough for the bullet to lightly brush past him. Leon became slightly unnerved at this point. He fired rapidly at Wesker, now that he decided to charge at him. Wesker continued to evade the shots, halving the distance between them. Leon fires the last shot in his clip, and to his surprise, Wesker catches the bullet with his index and middle fingers. He drops it at Leon's feet, his face returning to its natural, neutral position.

"My turn." Wesker smashes his fist into Leon's gut, causing the younger man to double over in pain. Leon gasps and groans, feeling the wind knocked completely out of him. "What's the matter, Leonard? Can't take it?"

Leon attempts to take a swing with his emptied gun, to only have his arm snagged by Wesker's hand. The shades wearer tightens his grip, causing Leon to releases his gun. Wesker grabs the weapon and carefully examines it.

"A government issue 9mm, thirteen rounds per clip, almost S.T.A.R.S.-issue in a way, but you don't use hollow point bullets, do you, Officer?"

Wesker drops the gun and kicks Leon in his upper thigh, causing him to yell in pain. Wesker smirks and releases his grip. Leon falls back, his hands spring off the cold floor, and he lands on his feet. The ex-cop cracks his knuckles and charges. Wesker readies himself, taking up a boxing stance. He dodges the agent's roundhouse kick to the head and counters with a shoulder ram to the chest.

Leon stumbles back and throws off the jacket. Wesker cracks his neck in anticipation. They charge at each other, legs sweeping and fists swinging. To his surprise, Leon was able to dodge Wesker's attacks, but couldn't actually strike back. Wesker found it annoying that with his abilities he couldn't hit the government agent, but the gratification came when Kennedy couldn't hit him either. He then saw an opening and took it. Leon fired his fist straight forward and the ex-S.T.A.R.S. captain grabbed his wrist, and threw him towards the door to the power generator. Leon landed with a groan and struggled to get up.

"Running out of steam, rookie?" Wesker taunts. "Too bad, 'cause I can kick your ass all night."

Leon grunts and springs to his feet, and grabs his shotgun off the floor. Wesker watches with some amusement.

_Gotta hand it him, though. He's pretty resourceful. _He pushed the thoughts away as Leon came charging at him with his shotgun. The ex-cop swung the weapon, to only have its stock busted against his opponent's forearm. Wood splinters fall to the floor like snowflakes. Wesker aggressively takes the gun from Leon and bends the barrel.

"You need to take better care of your stuff," the older man states dryly. He then drops the gun and crushes it with his boot. Leon steps back. "What's next, rookie? You gonna bash my head in with a steel pipe?"

"Sorry to disappoint, Wesker, but Chris has cornered the market on that." Leon unsheathes Wesker's knife. "You want it? Come and take it."

Wesker grins and closes the distance between them. Leon twirls the knife and takes a few swipes with it. Wesker manages to evade the strikes, and counters with a kick to the agent's ribs. Leon stumbles back, but regains his composure before Wesker fist collides with the side of his head. He ducks out of the way and sweeps legs at Wesker, who simply jumps over the sweeping kick and handsprings away.

Leon gets back on his feet and throws the knife. Wesker snags the blade as he charges forward. Leon barely gets his face out of the way of the ramming knife, the most it does is sheer some of his hair off, resulting in an uneven groove.

_Ah, man, and I just got it evened out,_ Leon thought.

Wesker twirls the knife around like a gunslinger and takes another swing. Leon ducks under the swipe and slams his fist into the ex-captain's gut. Wesker groans slightly and back away. His dizziness passes quickly, but not fast enough to counter the roundhouse kick to his face. Wesker's aviator-style glasses fly into the wall as they shatter. Wesker stares at Leon with a burning hatred, his eyes turning slight red, and the muscles in his arms tighten.

"Raaaah!" the former captain roars. He drops the knife and pounces on Leon, fingers on his neck. "_Those were brand new!_"

"So…I'll buy a new pair," Leon says between gasps. He slams his feet into Wesker's chest, causing his grip to lessen. He then follows up with a head-butt. Wesker backs away slightly, his vision cloudy and holding his nose.

"You're good, cop. I doubt even Redfield would last this long, but this is where it _ends!_" Wesker runs forward, yelling.

Leon readies himself, when suddenly, a loud boom spreads through the hallway. Wesker falls to the floor, gripping his leg. A pair of legs in cut-off jeans stands over him, a smoking Magnum aimed at his head.

"Don't move, sir," the Magnum-wielder says in a sultry, husky voice. "Wouldn't want you to hurt yourself."

Wesker stares into the cool blue eyes of Jill Valentine, and suppresses a growl. Leon manages to pick up his gun and slams a new clip into it. He aims it at Wesker's head.

"Looks like you've lost this time, Al," Leon taunts.

"I never lose, cop." Wesker pulls the pin out of one of his grenades.

A noxious gas fills the hallway. Sounds of coughing ensue, followed by a bright flash of light. The smoke clears after a few seconds, Jill and Leon still coughing. The government agent picks up his coat and sheathes his knife and gun. Jill holsters the Magnum and picks up the pieces to Leon's shotgun.

"Chris _did_ hit the guy with a steel rod," Jill states matter-of-factly.

"I just hope we don't run into Mr. Terminator for a while," Leon says. "Where's Billy?"

"Fourth floor, doing cleanup."

"Gotcha."

The ex-cop and ex-S.T.A.R.S. member head down the connecting hallway to the stairwell that connects the main floors of the facility. They give one final check before heading down the stairs.


	24. Reconnaisance

Desks were turned over, the smell of stall coffee permeated in the air, and the stench of rotting flesh flooded the small office construct. In the middle of this was Billy Coen, sitting on his desk and a cigarette in his mouth. He gives it a final puff and puts it out on the skull of a nearby corpse. He raises his Striker shogun, points it to a rising head just outside his view and without even looking, pulls the trigger. The creature's head explodes from its neck.

"Aw, man, I'm out of smokes!" Billy moans. "Ah, well, I should probably quit. Damn things are diggin' into my ammo funds, anyway." He pulls out the drawer to his desk and a white rabbit jumps on his leg. "How you doin', Becky?"

The rabbit twitches her nose in response and hops onto Billy's shoulder. The ex-Marine gives the shotgun a quick pump and digs through another drawer in his desk. He finds what he's looking for and pulls out a red object, roughly the size of his palm.

"Frag grenades, God's gift to disgruntled Umbrella victims," Billy declares, slipping the object into his ammo belt.

Pounding footsteps grab his attention. Billy slings the rifle off his shoulder and takes aim. His view to the stairwell is non-obstructive, his finger rests easy on the trigger, and sweat pours down his face. He's about ready to fire until he sees Jill Valentine's noticeable reddish-brown hair come into view.

"She's gonna get herself killed if she keeps doing that," Billy mutters. He slings the rifle back over his shoulder and whistles.

Leon and Jill spent the better part of five minutes moving decapitated corpses, and some with cigarette burns, out of the way as they cleared a path to Billy. Leon filled Billy in about the reactor's overload time and his second encounter with Wesker. They then came to a decision.

"I say we get outta here and let Wesker blow himself up," Billy states. "Chances are, whatever he's looking for, ain't here right now."

"Sounds like a plan," Leon says.

"I agree," Jill adds. "The last time I got trapped with that guy in a nightmarish place, I got locked in a cell and nearly got killed by a seven-foot thing in desperate need of a pair of nail clippers."

Billy and Leon share a look of surprise, and then shrugged it off. The next few minutes were spent digging through the ammo belts off the fallen soldier's in the piles Billy created. Jill found by sheer luck some ammo for Magnum, Billy found a few extra shotgun shells, and Leon found a 16-gauge Remington, fully loaded.

"Shotguns, Magnums, and grenades…oh, my," Jill says.

"We're off to kill the Wesker," Billy adds.

The trio gave the office area one last look around before heading downstairs. Just as they left, a set of jagged claws burst through the wall on the other side of the room.

* * *

Wesker grunted and groaned in pain. Finding his way back to his temporary headquarters was easy enough, but dealing with a leg that was punctured by a Magnum bullet was pure hell. He was grateful that it went straight through, since he didn't feel like digging through the soft flesh in his leg. It would be a few hours before the hole in his leg healed, and until then, he wasn't going anywhere. Lying down on the cold floor of the boiler room security office gave the ex-captain time to gather his thoughts.

"Master of unlocking, ha!" Wesker shouted, taking a firm grip on his thigh. "Bitch! I'll fix her one of these days, right after I yank out Redfield's heart and shove it down his sister's throat!"

A grinding of metal shook Wesker out of his rant. The Nemesis was coming through! The former S.T.A.R.S. captain sprung to his one good leg and stared at his security monitor. Sure enough, the S.T.A.R.S.-killing Tyrant had managed to rip apart the steel door and was making its way through the labyrinth of tunnels that lead to his lair. Wesker was infuriated.

"Let's see you find me after I do this!" Wesker growls. He hits a switch and the vents inside the tunnels opened, followed by the activation of high-powered fans. Wesker grinned evilly, seeing the creature grunt in confusion as the scent of its prey was all around it now. "It pays to be evil."

The Nemesis took a direction and ran with it. Wesker was pleased, upon seeing a sign that read: TOXIC WASTE DUMP.

* * *

Tyrant burst through the paper thin wall of the office area. A razor-sharp dorsal fin replaced the fin-blades on its back and a set of hardened teeth were in its jaw. Perhaps absorbing the mutant shark wasn't such a bad idea, after all. Tyrant grunted, its new enhanced hunting instincts working in overtime. The shark's tough skin would certainly increase its chances of fending off any small arms fire.

Tyrant ran through the office, its massive claw swinging. The sharpened blades sliced through the pile of corpses like they were nothing. The zombie's T-Virus stained blood sunk into the creature's body, causing some veins to pop. He cleared the office area and was hot on the trail of the three humans recently here. They would prove to be excellent sport.


	25. Tyranical

The time spent in the communications hub was short. Billy and Leon grabbed their respective rocket launchers, and Jill picked up her grenade launcher she left behind when she went to get Leon. The Umbrella survivors checked the area for any other undead townspeople and any ammo from those already dead. Not finding a whole lot, they headed back up the elevator. It opened up into darkness of the tunnels. Leon went first, his newly acquired shotgun at the ready. 

"So far, so good," the ex-cop mutters. He could faintly hear Jill behind him and he was sure the furry thing next to his face was the rabbit. A quick flash of light to his left grabbed his attention. "Ah, great."

"What is it?" Billy calls.

"I think it's safe to assume that the blast doors are closed!" Leon shouts back.

"Ah, not so loud," Jill says, her voice right in Leon's ear.

"We need some light," Billy utters.

Red emergency lighting suddenly snaps on. To everyone's surprise they were huddled together rather closely.

"Uh…I like you guys but this is just uncomfortable," Jill says. Slowly the group breaks apart. "I don't think we're getting out that way." The master of unlocking gazed at the massive blast doors before them. "Now what?"

"We can't blow it," Billy states. "We'd kill ourselves and I'd rather die in a more dignified manner."

Leon stared at Billy. "And on that note, I suggest we try another route."

"All right, but quick question," Jill adds, "what took out the card reader and thusly sealed us in here?"

A guttural growl above their heads seemed to answer Jill's question. They looked up and saw a frog-like creature coated in thick green scales. Wires were wrapped around its claws. The group slowly backed away, keeping their eyes on the creature on the ceiling. Without warning, the Hunter leaped to the floor and let out an unholy shriek. The trio of humans covered their ears to muffle the sound but to no avail.

"Good God!" Billy shouts.

Leon could barely make the creature out in the red lights and the ringing in his ears weren't helping. Gritting his teeth, his hands fall from his hands and grab his knife. Leon hurled the weapon in the general direction of the shrieking. The sound of metal tearing through flesh stopped the unholy shriek. Billy and Jill regained their composure and stared down at the frog-thing.

"I _hate_ these things!" Jill shouts, the poison evident in her voice.

"So do something about it," Leon says.

Jill cracks her neck and takes aim with her Magnum. She let's out a deep breath and squeezes the trigger. The slug rips through the creature's head with a satisfying splat. Blood and brain matter splash on the walls. Tense silence filled the red-tinted room and the Hunter fell back. Leon cautiously approaches the fallen creature and digs his knife out of the thing's foot.

"Well, if that's the biggest surprise down here, I think we're safe," Billy says.

Grinding metal echoed through the tunnel. The elevator car was ripped out of its place, followed by an ear-splitting crash several floors down. The group backed away cautiously until they were up against the blast doors. The sound of grinding metal died away and silence ensued. Shotguns were drawn and ready. A massive beast erupted from the shaft and its massive form filled the entire height of the tunnel.

Jill stares at Billy. "You and your big mouth."

Leon's eyes were tightly fixed on the mutated Tyrant before them. "What happened to it?"

"Who cares?" Billy half-shouts. "I'm more concerned with getting outta here."

"Solution found." Leon holsters the Remington, crouches down, and takes aim with his rocket launcher.

"What the hell are you doing!" Billy and Jill shout.

"Getting us out of here…I hope." Leon fired the rocket as the Tyrant charged.

The Umbrella beast was pushed back into the shaft and the rocket detonated shortly afterward. The tunnel filled with dirt, dust, and smoke. The elevator shaft collapsed in on itself. The Raccoon City survivors coughed loudly in a vain attempt to clear their sinuses.

"Nice going, Leon," Jill sarcastically says. "You trapped us in here, our air supply's gonna deplete, and…where's that breeze coming from?"

Billy and Leon stare at a section of a wall that caved in, with a set of stairs behind it. Leon drops the emptied rocket. Billy picks up a piece of charred brick and drops it down the stairs. It clunks down for a while and collides with something metal. The group's eyes scan the ceiling, the collapsed shaft, and the stairs, weapons raised.

"No puzzles," Leon states dryly.

"No crests," Jill mutters emotionlessly.

"No switches," Billy deadpans.

Slight snickering spreads through the group before they jump for joy.

"Yes!" Billy shouts.

"Boo-ya!" Leon yells.

"Whoo-hoo!" Jill cheers.

"Let's see where these stairs go," Billy says. "Chances are they'll lead right outta here, but knowing our luck…"

"A sequence of doors that require a key we have yet to find," Jill mumbles.

"Or an intricately designed mechanism that requires we use pictures to answer a riddle," Leon adds. "Sounds fun. Let's go."

The group lets out a sigh of expended hope and descend into the darkness below.

Tyrant felt its body was on fire. Its arms and legs were incinerated and its head was missing a lower jaw. Crushed beneath a pile of rubble was not its idea of fun. Strangely enough, it didn't feel much pain as its body began to reconstruct itself. It came almost instantly.

Its claw hand sprouted from its stump of an arm, coated in some yellow mucus. The same could be said about its other arm. Its legs came a moment sooner and it stood, bursting the rubble off its muscular body. Its jaw sprouted back into place, along with its razor-sharp shark teeth.

Tyrant then felt a strange sensation rush through its body. Its muscles compacted and took on a more scaly appearance. Tyrant felt stronger and more powerful. A possible result of such an extensive regeneration, but the most noticeable change came in its vision. Before the beast could only see in black and white, but now, it could see in shades of red and orange, even through walls. Heat signatures, a much better way to stalk its prey. Tyrant growled in anticipation. According to this new ability, the Nemesis wasn't too far away and neither was the human called Wesker.


	26. Discovery

Wesker awoke from his impromptu sleep. He felt a slight chill in the air that ran up his spine. He didn't like it and what he didn't like, he killed. He checked his leg. The Magnum-sized hole in it was starting to close up, which meant he'd been out for almost an hour. He checked his security monitors and didn't like what he saw. 

"Damn it! Where are they!" he yelled.

Coen, Valentine, and Kennedy had somehow vanished from his sight. He checked every camera he could find but they were simply gone. To be safe he checked the cameras installed in the town above the facility. There was nothing out there. This stress was starting to take him out of his usual calm demeanor with which he intimidated the inept Chief Irons back in Raccoon. Wesker took a few calming breaths and began to reprioritize.

"Keep your cool, Captain," Wesker calmly says. "Just think. If they've gone missing, that means what? Yes, it does. It means there's nothing in your way to retrieve the sample. Everything is now finally back on track, but first we have to do something about that pesky Nemesis, don't we?"

Wesker ran his fingers across his console and pulled up an image of the Nemesis. As he thought, the one-track minded beast had found the facility's nuclear waste disposal area. Smiling grimly, he hit a few buttons on a nearby keyboard. A massive, six-inch thick steel door came crashing down and sealed the S.T.A.R.S. killer inside with barrels of nuclear waste.

"Jill dumped acid on you and you still kept going, huh?" Wesker asks the image displayed before his eyes. "Let's see how long you last when the radiation starts to put that healing factor of yours into overdrive."

The former captain chuckles maliciously and leaves the safety of his command center. The night was still young and he was about to cash in.

* * *

Jill held tightly to the riot gun in her sweating hands and the shivering genetically enhanced rabbit on her shoulder wasn't making her feel any better about this situation. She hated the dark and enclosed spaces, and she had Umbrella to thank for that, but this was pushing it. She couldn't see her hand in front of her face and the longer she kept going down this dark stairwell, the more she felt that it didn't end. 

"You all right?" Billy asks. Jill yelps and nearly loses control of her shotgun. "I'll take that as a no."

"Sorry," Jill mumbles. "I thought I'd be used to this kind of stuff by now."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. Before Umbrella, the train was my favorite mode of transportation. Nowadays, I'd prefer the bus. What do you think, Leon?" No answer came to Billy's question.

"Leon?" Jill asks.

Bright lights clacked on, nearly blinding the ex-S.T.A.R.S. member and former Marine.

The rabbit took refuge in Jill's jacket.

"Lucky rodent," Billy mutters under his breath.

He wasn't sure but he thought he saw Jill glare at him.

"Hey, guys! I found something!" Leon's voice shouted.

Jill and Billy cautiously made their way down the stairs, still not used to the bright lights and the reflective paneling on the walls weren't helping matters either. They came down to the bottom of the stairs, where a smiling Leon was there to greet them, and a massive steel door that read "NO ADMITTANCE" in bright red lettering.

"How'd you get down here so fast?" Billy asks, shielding his eyes with his hand.

"I…fell," Leon admits sheepishly. "Anyway, you will freak at what I have to show you. On second thought, you won't."

"Is it a lab?" Jill asks.

"Give the lovely woman a prize," Leon declares, imitating Bob Barker, much to the dismay of his friends. "Sorry. Discovering Umbrella's latest pet projects makes me edgy."

The ex-cop turns around and punches in a code on a nearby control panel. The doors slide open, along with the whooshing noise from _Star Trek_. The trio exchanged glances of annoyance. Beyond the door was a setting Jill knew all too well.

"I gotta admit, Leon. When you find stuff, you find it big," she comments.

Sterilized work surfaces, low lighting, and massive glass tubes that went from the floor to the ceiling decorated the latest room. It had all the markings of an Umbrella lab, complete with a ripped open carcass on a nearby table.

"As much as I hate to admit it, this whole experience has gone better than my last one," Billy says.

Jill and Leon share a glance and say, "He had help from the start."

The group stalked through the lab, examining the various equipment. Leon and Jill holstered their shotguns, but Billy kept his ready to go in case the dissected corpse decided to get up. Most of the glass tubes were empty except one that caught Billy's eye immediately. There was a lizard-like bird encased in a tank of strange blue water. Various cables ran through it and a monitor nearby kept track of its vitals.

"What is this thing?" Billy asks no one in particular.

"It's called a Dac," Leon answers, busily reading a report of some kind. "Encountered 'em in Utah, in another underground facility. Easy to kill, but they're just too damn fast." He puts the report down. "Wonder why their keeping it alive."

"Let's not find out." The ex-Marine takes aim with the Striker and pulls the trigger.

The glass shatters and the strange creature within ends up with a donut-sized hole in its chest. Without taking any chances, Billy placed the shotgun against the lizard-bird's head and fired. Brain matter and various other fluids drench the floor.

"A little much, don't you think?" Jill says on the other side of the room.

"Made me feel better," Billy replies, holstering his weapon. "Find anything?"

"A keypad." Jill tinkers with a small device embedded in a pair of glass doors. "I'm gonna need a keycard and a password to get this thing open."

Leon steps up next to her and whips out the keycard given to him. He swipes it through the pad's slot and punches in a code. A hydraulic hiss followed and the doors slid open.

"The day Raccoon was destroyed," Jill comments. "How'd you know?"

"It was either that or 2101," Leon says.

The next door over concealed various chemicals frozen in oddly shaped vials. Jill picks up one and tries to read its label. Finding it futile to pronounce it, she puts it back. Leon finds a vial with a blue liquid inside.

"Look what I found," he says, showing it to Jill.

"Careful you don't drop it," she advises. "That thing shatters, we're all dead."

Leon carefully puts it back, but quickly picks it back up when a series of thunderous pounds emanate from the wall. Billy enters the freezer room.

"What's goin' on?" he asks frantically.

"There's something beyond the wall," Jill answers, spookily.

"Let's not stick around to find out what," Leon suggests. He firmly grasps the vial in his hand and slides it into his jacket pocket. He looks at Jill. "It may be a risk, but I'd feel safer if it wasn't near here."

She nods and the trio backtracked out of the lab and sealed the doors to the freezer. A few seconds later and the wall crashed trough, along with a Nemesis with melting skin.


	27. Endgame

Wesker's fist smashed its way through medical cabinet after medical cabinet. The ex-S.T.A.R.S. captain was mad. He knew the Nemesis wouldn't bother him for a long time but losing track of Valentine and her friends made him edgy. He knew that Umbrella had to stash their new virus in the lab located on the fifth floor, for every where else was just stupid.

"Where are you!" Wesker shouted. His face was red from prolonged screaming and his anger steadily increasing. "Calm down, Captain. You're not gonna get anywhere in the state you're in."

Taking a few calming breathes, Wesker refocused on his objective. He had to stop thinking in the obvious and concentrate on the abstract. His eyes traveled the no longer sterile walls and settled on an empty Tyrant-sized tube. He narrowed his eyes and steadily approached it. Cracking his knuckles, he rams his fist into it. Thin cracks spread out from the impact. Pleased, Wesker does it again and again. The fifth strike causes the tube to open.

Sterilizing fluid floods the floor. Wesker steps into the shattered tube and punches through the base. He feels a small object in his fist and gently squeezes it. Pulling carefully, Wesker wrenches free a small test tube containing a strange fluid.

"Time for the hard part." Wesker pockets the fluid and exits the lab.

* * *

Nemesis could barely feel its skin warping and dissolving. It knew its time was short and it didn't care. It struggled to stand up and its knees caved in. Nemesis fell on its back with a squishy thud. It groaned in pain as it felt the its internal organs dissolve.

"Staaaaars…" Nemesis hissed. Its meaty fist flailed and knocked against a wall.

Several vials on the wall-mounted shelves fell and shattered, their contents sinking into the S.T.A.R.S. assassin's skin. Nemesis's body rocked with pain, but a good pain. Its melting skin shed from its body, replaced by a new, thicker and meatier, layer. The damaged done by the toxic radiation was quickly gone and it stood, as menacing and ugly as ever.

Nemesis looks down at one of the shattered vials and picks up a sizable chunk. The letter G was emblazoned on it. Nemesis growled and dropped it. A scent penetrated its senses. A target was recently here.

"Jiiiillllll…" Nemesis smashed its way through the lab.

* * *

The trio of Umbrella survivors came to an abrupt halt. They followed a pathway that ran the outside of the lab and came across a catwalk with numerous tubes running above, and a dark pit below. They were halfway across when they heard a series of thudding footsteps. Shotguns were aimed at the darkness behind them and a tense silence followed. The thudding suddenly stopped.

"Staaaaarrrrssss!" hissed an unseen shadow.

"Come on," Leon growled. "I dare you."

Nemesis barreled out of the darkness and charged for the three humans in its path. Leon and Billy fired, their blasts ripping a sizable chunk out of Nemesis's shoulders. Jill's shot pegs the beast between its eyes. It staggers slightly and continues to charge. Muzzle flashes light up the dark tunnel, pieces of Nemesis' body fly in blood-soaked chunks. Jill draws her Magnum and fires at one of the creature's kneecaps. Nemesis roars in pain and flies in the air. It impacts the walkway, its massive head an inch away from Leon's foot. The ex-cop placed his Remington's barrel up against the beast's head, unaware of the meaty fist around his ankle. He pulled the trigger and a sizable chunk of Nemesis' head blew apart, along with a small section of the catwalk.

The structure groaned and its support lines broke off. Leon pumped his shotgun and fired at the beast's massive body, but miraculously, the Umbrella creature rolled out of the way. A large chunk of the walkway blew out, and more support lines snapped, and the catwalk turned into a small ramp. The Nemesis body began to slide, and it fell into the darkness, but not alone. Leon felt his body give an involuntary grunt and he slipped into the shadows below. Jill and Billy watched with horror as their friend tumbled out of sight.

"Yaaaaah!" screamed a voice that quickly dissipated.

"Leon!" Jill shouted.

* * *

Leon opened his eyes and found himself in a dark room, along with an unconscious Nemesis. He took aim with his Remington and slowly backed away. His back got pressed against a smooth surface. Slowly, Leon moves his hand from the trigger to behind his back. His fingers feel against a steel knob and turn it.

"See ya, ugly," Leon mutters. He slips past the door and slams it shut. He turned around and saw a long hallway lined with a barbwire fence. "Gotta keep moving."

He takes off at a full run, hoping to put as much distance between himself and the Nemesis. After thirty or so feet, he came to a steel ladder and quickly climbs it, his shotgun ringing against the rungs. At the top, he landed on lattice metal floor. A buzzing noise got his attention. He looked around and saw a security camera perched in the rafters. He draws his handgun and fires at it. Sparks and film rain down on the numerous pipes that feed into the facility.

"Excellent shot, Mr. Kennedy," says a voice Leon has come to despise in only a matter of hours. Wesker jumps down from a series of pipes, his arms folded across his chest. "Shall we pick up where we left off?"

Leon throws his guns down and raises his fists. "Bring it."

Wesker grins and charges.

* * *

Tyrant roared and slashed its way through the facility. It carved its way through the floors, tracking the Nemesis. It stopped after a few floors when it found its prey had decided to stop moving. Tyrant semi-smiled and slammed its body through the floors that separated it from its objective. After a few minutes, Tyrant found itself in the hallway Wesker had disappeared through earlier.

Tyrant roared in anger and smashed its claw through a section of the wall. It bent forward and fell off. The Umbrella beast looked through the hole and its thermal scan picked up Wesker, the human that blasted it with the rocket, and the Nemesis. Its Licker instincts took over and Tyrant scampered through the opened hallway on all fours. Coming to a ladder, Tyrant leaped up on the adjacent wall and scaled it. The beast latched itself to the ceiling and looked down.

The two humans were busily fighting each other as the Nemesis approached slowly. Tyrant had aspirations to slay the human that blew its body apart, but Wesker came first. Silently, he urged Nemesis to speed up its trek.

* * *

The catwalk ended on solid ground and Jill and Billy took off at a full run. Jill's attention wasn't on the mission right now, after seeing Leon plummet into darkness with a version of the very beast that tried to kill her a couple years ago. They made their way through a series of twists and turns, and slid to a stop. Deceased townspeople stood in their way. Billy cracks his neck and pulls out a red grenade. Jill's eyes widen and she slowly backs away. The former Marine pulls the pin with his teeth and throws it into the amassing crowd. The zombies explode in a wave of flames and the stench of rotten meat floods Billy's nose.

"Can't you be more careful?" Jill half-shouts. A furry face and pair of ears poke itself out of her jacket's collar.

Billy flashes a lopsided grin. "I could but where's the fun in that?"

Jill sighs and rolls her eyes. They continue down the winding tunnel and came across a catwalk suspended above a boiler room. They looked around and saw two figures below fighting, each identified by their signature haircuts.

"I don't believe it," Billy says. "Leon has more lives than a cat."

"Yeah, and Wesker's about to end each of them," Jill mutters. The small rabbit jumps out of her jacket and latches itself to her neck. "Think we should help?"

"Not just yet." Billy's gaze was directed across the walkway. Moans and groans drifted across the air. "What say we deal with these guys first?"

Jill readies her grenade launcher and her Magnum. Billy pops a few shells in shotgun and takes aim. The zombies approach, unaware of the fiery death that awaits.

* * *

Leon's fist connected with air that was Wesker's face a second ago. Next, his leg swept in an arc and nearly brushed his opponent's hair. A fist slammed into Leon's gut that launched him into a set of pipes.

"That the best you can muster now, cowboy?" Wesker taunts. "Perhaps Krauser set his sights a little too low on you."

Leon drew his knife and booted a nearby barrel at Wesker. The ex-S.T.A.R.S. captain bats it away and Leon charges with his shimmering blade. Caught off guard, Wesker feels the cold steel rip through the flesh near his eye.

"You bastard!" Wesker shouts, clutching his wound. His fingers and glove become stained with the red fluid.

Leon gives the knife a few twirls, and makes a swipe with it. A thin spray of blood splashes on Wesker's boot.

"C'mon, Captain, show the rookie how it's done," Leon taunts.

Wesker growls and charges, a stream of blood trickling down his face. Leon narrows his eyes and throws the knife. It impales itself in meat of Wesker's foot, bringing him to a stop. He rips the knife out of his boot with a vicious grunt, the blade stained with more of his blood. A fist smashes in his face and Wesker tumbles back. His back collides with the floor and he quickly recovers.

"You're _really_ starting to piss me off," Wesker growls.

"Yeah, I have that certain knack," Leon replies. "Care to do something about it?"

Wesker leaps into the air and brings the knife down.

* * *

Explosive rounds reverberate across the walkway as Billy and Jill unload shot after shot into the approaching zombie horde. Jill traded the Magnum for the riot gun when it ran out of ammo. She could feel the high-powered weapon in her hands getting lighter with each shot and it wouldn't be long until she had to use the grenade launcher, which she hoped she wouldn't need in this close proximity.

Billy's Striker blew apart the heads of the undead townspeople. Their guts and blood dripped through the open areas of the catwalk and the smell was starting to get to him. After a few tense moments, last of the zombies fell over the side of the railing with a sickening squish on a pipe.

"We clean up good," Jill says, wiping away some sweat accumulated on her forehead.

"Indeed we do." Billy checks the Striker's capacity. "This baby's down to its last thirty shells."

"A one-hundred capacity shotgun." Jill shakes her head in disbelief. "Where do you get something like that?"

Billy grins. "Strange weirdoes in purple pajamas in the slums of any major city."

"Sorry I asked." Jill heard shuffling feet coming from somewhere. She turned around and saw more zombies coming towards them. "Ah, great."

Billy turned and fired. The head of the first zombie he saw blew off its neck and fell below. Jill unloaded a shot that blew apart the neck of a decomposing woman in a waitress uniform. Her next shot knocked back two zombies, and her third shot made an odd clicking noise.

"Crap," she mutters. She drops the emptied shotgun and readies the grenade launcher, a bit nervously. "Fire in the hole."

The shell fires from the launcher in an arc. It gets lost in the approaching horde. A few seconds later, body parts get blown apart and chunks rain down. A small section of was scorched but wasn't in good enough condition to walk across.

Billy whistles. "Nice shootin'."

"Thanks." Jill blows away the smoke at the end of the barrel. "Helps if you've used one before."

The clanging of metal and loud grunting drew their attention to the fight down below. Jill slung the launcher over her shoulder and Billy put the Striker at rest.

* * *

Wesker evaded punch after punch administered by Leon, while returning a few shots of his own. Leon still couldn't believe that with a knife wound to his face and foot, Wesker still managed to keep up his speed. Wesker's overhead knife strike managed to slice through the ex-cop's jeans and create a thin stream of blood that trickled into his shoe. The knife in question was currently imbedded in the floor.

"If you joined up early enough, you woulda been in S.T.A.R.S. Alpha," Wesker says, kicking Leon in the chest.

He stumbles over and springs off his hands. "So I keep hearin'."

The government agent tackles Wesker to the ground and furiously pounds his face. Before his fifth strike, the ex-S.T.A.R.S. captain grabs Len's fist and squeezes. Leon groans in pain and is quickly silenced by a boot into his face. He falls on his back and Wesker plants his foot on his chest and presses.

"Any last words before I send you to whatever hell awaits you?" Wesker asks.

"No," Leon answers, "but that guy might have a few words to say to you."

Perplexed, Wesker looks around and his face gets a massive fist smashed into it. He flies through the air and smashes into some pipes. Leon gets to his feet and stares at the Nemesis. The beast acknowledges him but doesn't do a thing. He cautiously walks around the Umbrella brute, picks up the knife, and runs to a ladder on the other side of the platform.

Wesker frees himself from the pipes and gives his back a readjustment crack. He glares at the hulking beast that is Nemesis and rushes towards it. His fist smashes into Nemesis' gut, a squishy sound follows after. Nemesis grunts and bats Wesker away like a rag doll.

"Wessssskkkkerrrrrrr!" Nemesis roars.

"Bring it on, you worthless piece of shit!" Wesker yells. Nemesis is nearly on top of him, when suddenly three sharp spikes ram through the brute's chest. "What the hell?"

Strange tentacles wrap around Nemesis, and its body seems to sink into the spikes. Wesker looks behind the incapacitated monster to see Tyrant. Wesker wore a lopsided grin, watching his favorite beast absorbing his most hated monster. In a matter of seconds, Nemesis' body and essence had sunk into Tyrant's body. The beast unleashes an unholy roar and its mutated features sink into its body. With a thunderous shriek, the transformation is over.

Wesker looks with awe at this latest form. Tyrant's body took on the more defining characteristics of the Nemesis, such as the massive muscles and the meaty fist, and its face took on a mix of the Tyrant's and Nemesis's.

"Excellent, my Tyrant," Wesker says. "You truly are the best."

The Tyrant-Nemesis roars and slashes Wesker across the chest. Showers of blood float through the air and the shocked ex-S.T.A.R.S. captain slumps to the floor. The realization came a second later.

"_No!_"


	28. Aftermath

Jill and Billy looked down with minor disgust as the lumbering creature that once was two separate beings repeated slashed at Albert Wesker. Faint sparks ripped through the massive creature's body, but it appeared to be unaffected.

"Man, what a way to go," Billy says, holstering his Striker and taking hold of his shoulder-strapped rocket launcher.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Jill adds, taking hold of her grenade launcher. A heavy mass landed nearby and the master of unlocking turned, aimed, and sighed in relief. "Leon."

Leon locks eyes with Jill, grins, and says, "Miss me, gorgeous?"

"Shut up." Jill turns her attention back to the one-sided fight below. "We have a couple hours left until the reactor goes nuclear, so now what?"

"Oh, I'm sure I can think of something," Billy says, taking aim with the rocket launcher. He adjusts the launcher's digital scope and tightly focuses it on the muscled behemoth. "That's right, scuz bucket. Kill him and then I get to put you out of our misery."

Leon and Jill watch intently as Wesker manages to evade the lumbering giant's strikes, while fidgeting with a small hand-held device.

* * *

Wesker desperately presses the button on his remote device, hoping that somehow the high-powered shocks will stop the creature trying to kill him. His face was decorated with three long, diagonal slashes, his left leg was covered in blood, and his right arm fell limply at his side.

"Come on, you piece of _shit_!" Wesker yells. "Die already!" Using his thumb, he rotates a small dial around the electro-shock button, and a small light up display turns from yellow to red. "You won't get me that easily!"

Wesker pushes the button and the Tyrant-Nemesis hybrid explodes with electricity. The scent of cooking meat floods the boiler room and the hybrid monster still stands. Wesker backs away and pushes the button again, but nothing happens. He throws the device away, pulls out a red grenade from his belt, pulls the pin with his teeth, and throws it. A wall of flames envelop the Umbrella beast, but it appeared to be unaffected.

"Wessssskerrrrrr!" roared the beast and stabbed its massive claws in Wesker's shoulder. The bleeding human was hoisted up to the monster's face.

"That Ashford _bitch_ couldn't kill me, so what makes you think you can?" Wesker shouts.

The Tyrant-Nemesis growled and hurled Wesker to the other side of the room. His head slammed into a steel pipe with a bone-cracking thud, and his body slumped to the floor. His eyes remain open, and stare intently at a strange purple fluid leaking from his uniform.

* * *

"Now?" Billy asks.

"Now," Leon says.

The ex-Marine tightly focuses on the Umbrella beast and fires. Four rockets explode from the launcher and converge onto a single target. The Tyrant-Nemesis turned around, just in time to see the projectiles comes towards its face. It let out an enraged roar and shook its claw in the air.

Jill, Leon, and Billy duck and cover as a massive explosion rips through the boiler room. The stench of burning meat and smoke flood their senses. After a few minutes, they stand up and survey the damage. The monster's body parts were strewn around the target area, and half the skin on the Wesker corpse's face had turned ashen.

Billy lets out a deep breath and drops the launcher over the side of the railing. "It blowed up _real_ good."

"Yeah, it did," Leon adds. "Let's get outta here before we do the same." He and Billy take one last look at the smoking crater below and cross the catwalk.

Jill puts the rabbit down at her feet, stands rigidly, and gives a shot salute. "Farewell, Captain. May you have truly died at that thing's malformed hand." She picks up the rabbit and runs to catch up with her two friends.

* * *

Thick veins spread out from the charred remains of the Tyrant-Nemesis. The thick cables of muscle intersect and bind the various pieces of the creature. The body parts come together and slowly start to reform. Out of the mass of muscle comes a massive hand, with several, jagged claws of various lengths and shapes.

A pair of legs emerge next, one resembles the thick muscles of a Hunter, while the other has the appearance of a Tyrant. A second hand rips through the muscle mass, with a shark fin attached at the shoulder. The head emerges next, with one half resembling the Tyrant's face, and the other taking the characteristics of the Nemesis.

The amalgamated creature shakily stands and sharp steel spikes explode through its body. Its tongue slithers from its mouth and whips through the air. It knew what it had to do now and it would not stop until it found its newest targets and killed them mercilessly. Picking up the scent of fresh meat, the beast pursues.

* * *

Wesker's lifeless body rocked with convulsions. The thick wounds that decorated the corpse suddenly healed, and any evidence of the wounds was gone. The veins near the dead ex-captain's left eye gradually turn black, and decorate the dead face like a grotesque tattoo. The corpse's chest rises and falls, and his lifeless eyes shine with malice and hatred.

With a grunt, Albert Wesker stands up, feeling the breath of life flow through him once again. He was curious as to how he was still alive and halted his investigation when he noticed the numerous glass shards sticking out of his chest. With barely any thought, he brushes the crushed glass away and wills the black veins near his eye to return to normal.

"Better hope the bitch in red found some samples, 'cause I just ruined mine," Wesker mutters to himself. He checked his watch and decided it was time to leave. "It's the mansion all over again."


	29. Escape

The thunderous noise of Billy's Striker reverberated through the winding tunnels as it blew away the heads of the zombies the trio came across. Leon kept his knife at the ready and Jill took aim with her Beretta. She was starting to run out of ammo for it and the grenade launcher would be a little much at this time.

"There's no end to these things!" Billy shouts.

"Of course not," Leon adds, dryly.

A zombie missing half its face evaded the powerful burst from Billy's shotgun and charged for the ex-cop. Leon slashes his knife through the creature's neck and gives it a solid kick to the chest. It crashes into a wall, and the head tumbles after.

Jill's Beretta fires off a few rounds and the heads of a few zombies burst with dark liquid. She then took aim at the leg of an approaching zombie and blew its knee out. With a sturdy roundhouse kick, she smashes its face into the wall.

The gunfire continued for a few more minutes and the tunnel stank of decomposing meat. Billy checked his shotgun and found it to have ten more shells; his assault rifle was on its last two clips, and he didn't have the ammo to reload. Jill had run out of clips for the Beretta and was down to her last ten bullets, while the grenade launcher had four more shells. Leon had no guns at the moment, but only had a few clips for his handgun ammo and a handful of shotgun shells.

"Think that's all of 'em?" Billy asks.

"Probably not," Jill says, "but let's not stick around to find out."

The group traveled down the hallway in silence, not even hearing the sound of their own footsteps. After fifteen minutes of darkness, they came to an elevator. Next to it was a large gray handle marked with big red letters that said: DO NOT TOUCH.

"Should we?" Leon asks no one in particular.

"Yeah, lets," Jill says. "What's the worse that could happen?"

Billy takes hold of the handle and gives it a firm, downward pull. Red lights streak above their heads, and a woman's voice resonates through unseen speakers.

"The facility has been compromised," the voice said. "Decontamination process has started. Reactor core armed for detonation. Self-destruct in one hour."

"They don't miss a beat, do they?" Jill says.

"Looks like we're outta here." Billy opens up the elevator and the trio marches in. The metal box rises up through the dark shaft.

The only noise they heard was the cable straining to lift them up.

* * *

Wesker heard the detonation signal as he traveled up the only other elevator still functioning. He knew that Kennedy had set the reactor's coolant system to shut down at dawn, but it wouldn't overload and explode until fifteen minutes later. The fact that someone had armed the reactor meant they three pains in his ass were not taking any chances of him, or his pride and joy, from walking away from this.

"Probably think I'm dead, after what happened," Wesker muttered to himself. "Wouldn't be the first time."

The elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open to the lobby of an office building. He looked around and took note of the decomposing bodies strewn about. A clock on the wall said the time was 4:49, and in less than an hour, the very ground he stood on would become a crater.

Wesker walked out of the lobby, kicking the doors off the hinges, and examined the formerly infested zombie town. It had a charm that Raccoon City had in its last hours and he wasn't in the mood to be around when this place met a similar fate. Before taking a single step out onto the street, his walkie-talkie shrieked. He snatches it and turns it on.

"Wesker," he answers.

"Oh, you are still alive," said the voice on the other end.

"Krauser. What's new on your end?"

"The bitch came through, in spades. How 'bout you, Al?"

"I had it, but complications have arisen."

"What kind?"

"Let's just say that due to circumstances beyond my control, I'm just like you now."

"Really? Well, then, let's see how far you get with two different viruses runnin' through your system."

Wesker gritted his teeth. "You just wait, Jack. When I get out there, I'm taking that beret of yours and shoving down your throat."

Krauser chuckled and replied with, "I'd like to see you try, pretty boy."

Wesker turned the walkie-talkie off and hooked it to his belt. He took a few steps down the street but abruptly stopped. He looked down and saw a jagged claw pierced through his shin, through his stomach, and out his back. A raspy gasp penetrated his lips as the claw dragged his body through the street.

* * *

The elevator finally stopped and the doors swung open. Billy, Leon, and Jill looked around and found themselves in…

"A parking garage," Jill says. "Of all the places to dump us, it drops off at a parking garage."

"Yeah, and no usable cars," Billy adds, seeing several vehicles with their tires blown, engine parts strewn about, and some were melted to the concrete.

"Let's just find a way out of here before we're all barbecued," Leon says, his voice echoing.

They traversed the garage, weapons at the ready, until they came to a vehicle that looked fresh from the dealer on the third floor. They couldn't believe their luck at what they just found.

"A 2005 Hummer, with a convertible roof," Billy said in awe. "What are the odds?"

"Pretty damn good, I'd say," Leon replies. "One guess as to who owns it." The ex-cop points to the license plate, which read, "STRSCPN."

"'S.T.A.R.S. Captain', eh?" Jill reads. "Figures. Only Wesker would have a vehicle like this."

"Since he's not gonna say anything…" Billy says. He climbs into the driver seat, followed by Jill in the passenger seat, and Leon in the back. Billy checks the visor but finds nothing. "That bastard! He has the keys!"

"Jill, move over," Leon says. Jill climbs in the back and Leon jumps upfront. He kicks the ignition and a section of the steering column opens up.

"What are you doing?" Billy asks.

"What's it look like?" Leon spits back. "I'm hotwiring this thing?" The ex-cop yanks out several wires and uses his teeth to take the plastic coating off.

"You sure you know what you're doing?" Jill asks, impatiently.

"Did it once," Leon answers, spitting some plastic away. He fiddles with the exposed wiring and the engine roars to life.

"Holy shit!" Billy exclaims. "Where'd you learn to hotwire a car?"

"Raccoon," Leon answers bluntly. "Now, Mr. Coen, I believe we were making a hasty getaway."

Billy smiles, throws the car in drive, and steps on the accelerator. The massive vehicle thunders out of the garage on military-grade tires. Once out on the main road, Leon pops open the glove compartment and finds a nickel-plated handgun. He takes it without question.

"Cool piece," Jill says from the back.

"Y'know, for being a mutant bent on killing us and destroying the world, Wesker certainly has good taste in guns," Leon contemplates.

"If you think that's nice, check out the back." Jill knocks her knuckles against something metal behind her seat.

Leon holsters the gun and climbs in the back. He brushes his hand against a metal box but can't see what it is. "Hey, Billy, we could use a little light back here!" he shouts up front.

Billy pushes a switch and the truck's canvas top collapses. The light from the dimming street lights illuminate numerous metallic boxes decorated with various numbers and letters. Leon pulls one up, grunting slightly.

"Billy, what would you say this is?" the government agent asks, making sure that the numbers and letters are visible.

"Off hand guess? I'd say it's an antitank weapon," Billy answers.

"Antitank?" Jill repeats, the confusion evident in her voice.

"It fires a rocket filled completely with napalm," Billy explains. Jill and Leon exchange looks of nervousness. "It comes with small charge at the head that emits just enough heat to ignite the napalm. Pretty deadly stuff."

Leon lowers the weapon case with delicate care. Jill returns to a natural sitting position and the rabbit on her shoulder jumps into the empty seat upfront. She and Leon exchange a quick glance and shrug.

The drive continued on in silence as the sun began to rise. According to the Hummer's dashboard clock, they had about 25 minutes until the facility went boom. Jill spent the time polishing her Beretta with a rag she dug out of her jeans. Leon examined his newly acquired firearm, finding nothing unusual about it, except that it had a laser sight imbedded under the barrel. Billy drummed his hands on the steering wheel, as he sang to himself in a low voice. Rebecca the rabbit curled into a ball and quietly slept.

A low rumbling caused them to stop what they were doing. Billy brought the truck to a stop and the group listened carefully. The rumbling came again, two minutes later, and increased in intensity. Thirty seconds later and the truck began to shake. Five seconds later and a section of road behind them erupted. Chunks of asphalt rained down and the three Umbrella survivors recoiled in shock as to what came out of the street.


	30. Chase

Tyrant's body bulged with the unnatural muscles of the Nemesis, even taking on the strange pulsating muscle around the neck. It howled as its body mutated to its now default form, comprised of the numerous Umbrella creations it had ingested into itself. It didn't appear to notice the three human life forms in the vehicle near the hole it made in the street.

"Billy?" Jill asks, her nervousness evident.

"Yes, Jill?" Billy replies, his eyes not wavering from the _thing_ that was supposed to be dead.

"Do you now the top speed of a Hummer?"

"No, I don't, so let's find out." Billy takes a firm grip of the steering wheel and guns the accelerator. The truck gives a slight kick as the tires burn on the street.

The mutated Tyrant watches the vehicle speed away. With a guttural growl, it undergoes a slight mutation to its form. Its legs take on the form of the Hunter's well-developed thigh muscles, along with the Licker's jagged toe claws. Its face takes on the more defining characteristics of a great white shark, most noticeably the pointed snout.

"Staaaaarrrrrsssss!" the mutated beast roars and gives chase.

Its claws slash through the pavement and its finely tuned senses kick into overdrive, finding the truck traveling past a pizzeria. It growled and roared and quickly began to close the distance between itself and its prey.

"Here it comes!" Jill shouts.

"I can see that!" Billy yells back. He frees the assault rifle between his shoulder and seat and tosses it to Leon. "It might slow it down!"

The ex-cop takes aim, and a clatter of automatic gunfire echoes through the buildings. Leon wasn't sure what was happening but he thought he saw the bullets glance off the creature's skin. The weapon quickly emptied and Billy tossed back his last clip for it. Leon took careful aim at one of the creature's eyes, and fired. Billy took a sharp turn and the shot blew out the window to a red Ford F-150 pickup truck.

"There goes my deposit," Jill muttered.

Leon didn't hear her and glared back at the driver.

"Sorry, man," Billy sheepishly replied.

Leon took aim once again and fired. The round tore through the monster's left eye, but it didn't so much as scream or slow down. He fired again and the right exploded in a burst of black blood and yellow puss. The monster growled slightly and kept up its pace.

Leon turned to the woman sitting next to him. "Jill, maybe you'll have more luck."

"Yeah." The master of unlocking took aim with her grenade launcher and fired. The shell blew off an arm, but it quickly grew back. "Damn. This thing gets harder to kill every time we blow it up."

Tyrant leaped through the air and was now in stabbing range of the two passengers in the back. Leon freed Billy's Striker from the front seat and jumped into the Hummer's small truck bed. He shoves the barrel of the weapon into the monster's mouth and pulls the trigger. The back of its head explodes and it stumbles back.

"Well, look at Mr. Terminator," Billy says.

"It'll be back," Leon says, doing his best Schwarzenegger impression. He quickly drops the accent and faces forward. "Would an antitank weapon be enough to kill it?"

"If it can blow apart the armor of an enemy tank, it can most certainly kill our unwanted nuisance."

Jill's gaze was fixed to the rampaging figure now coming at them at full speed. "Better hope it comes with instructions because we're about to have company."

Leon stashes the shotgun under his seat and opens one of the metal boxes. Inside was a fully assembled weapon about twice the size of the rocket launcher Leon had used against the monster now charging for them. He sighed heavily and pulled it out.

"I hope this thing works," Leon muttered. He found one of three shells in the case and loaded it in.

Jill jumped into the truck bed and took careful aim with the destructive weapon in her grasp. She fired off a shot and the shell blew apart the monster's lower leg. It toppled forward and slammed through a broken down minivan. Jill fired again and the van exploded into a million pieces. The Tyrant's body flew into a station wagon, instantly crushing it. The beast stood on a shaking leg, and its missing limb slowly grew back.

"Staaaarrrrrssss!" it roared and continued its chase.

Billy took every sharp turn he could think of, in hopes that the thing chasing them would turn too wide and slam into a building. His hopes were dashed when the relentless creature simply smashed through any obstacle in its path.

"You about ready there, Mr. Bond?" Billy half-shouts.

"Shut up," Leon replies. "Let's see you aim this thing with a maniac at the wheel." He looked through the weapon's scope and took aim at the monster's chest. "Please work."

The massive weapon fired and Leon fell on his back. The massive round flew at the Umbrella monstrosity and effortlessly batted it away. It detonated in a small clothing store, and it quickly burned into ashes.

"Wanna try that again?" Jill asks.

"You still got one more round, don'cha?" Leon replies, rubbing the shoulder he had mounted the weapon.

Jill sighs and takes aim with the grenade launcher. She fires and the monster's head blows apart. Billy whistles in appreciation and barely evades ramming the truck into a wall. The Tyrant staggers forward and its head half-way regenerates before continuing the chase.

"Anytime now, Mr. Kennedy," Billy says impatiently.

Leon loads another shell into the antitank weapon and takes careful aim. He wasn't going to risk another direct shot after the last attempt. Instead he aimed just in front of the monster's feet. The rocket kicked and Leon flew back again. The round found its mark at the Tyrant's feet and exploded in a shower of flames that engulfed it.

An unholy shriek echoed through the empty streets and the Tyrant's skin turned into an inky black mess. Leon springs back to his feet and loads the last round. He quickly aims and fires, the recoil launching him against the back of the passenger seat. The round whistled loudly and sunk into Tyrant's skin just as it began to grow back.

A tense few seconds ticked by and the round exploded in a glorious shower of orange flames that instantly fried the monster's remains, along with any chance of it pulling itself back together.

Leon throws the emptied high-powered weapon into the street and a pair of arms wrapped around his neck.

"You did it!" Jill exclaimed.

"That was amazing, man!" Billy shouted, honking on the horn for emphasis. "I mean, it just went boom!"

Jill got a little worried when Leon didn't respond. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," Leon says shakily. "I just hope I don't have to do that again."

Billy chuckled and finally managed to get the vehicle out of the doomed city. Once off the beaten path, he accelerated the truck up to a cliff overlooking the small town.


	31. Rescue

Leon sat on the hood of the turned off car, Jill spread herself across the back seat, and Billy took it upon himself to answer nature's call on a nearby cactus.

"I've always wanted to visit Arizona," Leon says, "but not like this."

"I know what you mean," Jill replies. "I've always wanted to walk down the street in a tube top and miniskirt and we all know how that turned out."

They shared a chuckle as Billy came back to the car, zipping up his pants.

"You reckon we're far enough?" Billy asks Jill in a Southern drawl.

"If not, we're gonna find out," Jill answers, sitting up.

Five minutes passed and the town became an instant crater, the result of a bright white light erupting from the ground. The dust finally settled after a good ten minutes, and the trio didn't feel the slightest tinge of radiation.

"So what happens now?" Billy asks.

"Usually a helicopter or something," Jill answers.

The unmistakable sounds of an incoming helicopter swept across the desert and they looked back in time to see a black helicopter with a U.S. flag emblazoned on its side. A slot in the side opened up and a man dressed in a black business suit leaned out.

"If you would all come with me now!" the man shouted over the noise of the rotors.

Jill picked up the rabbit curdled up in the Hummer's passenger seat and followed Billy and Leon into the hovering helicopter. They sat in a row of cramped seats that forced them to see forward. Across from them was the man in the black suit along with another man in an identical suit.

"Mr. Kennedy, we are pleased with the expediency of your mission but blowing up the facility was not in the game plan," the first man said.

"Sorry, Agent Thompson," Leon said. "Have to watch that next time."

"Indeed you will," said the other agent. He turned to Jill. "Miss Valentine, we are thankful for your assistance and you can be sure that we do intend to pay you back."

Jill slightly gasped and said, "Really, you don't have to do that."

"It's okay, ma'am," said Thompson. "We understand that you're father is up for parole in a few weeks."

"Yeah, but he'll never make it," Jill explains, "what with breaking, entering, and miscellaneous thievery."

"Well, there is the fact he has an exemplary record of good behavior," said the second agent. "I'm sure that'll fetch some good points, right, Agent Thompson?"

"Indeed, Agent Jameson," answered the other. His gaze fell on Billy. "And we have much business to discuss with you, Mr. Kendo…or would you prefer Mr. Coen?"

"You know?" said Billy with a mix of shock and nervousness.

"Don't worry, Billy," Thompson said. "We're not here to take you into custody, unless you give us a reason. Your friend may have given your fake ID a very extensive background but we have better tools at our disposal…namely the FBI."

"And at the insistence of one investigator in particular, we found some starting things involving your mission, if it can be called that," Jameson explains. "It seemed that, except for you, your unit was comprised of members of an elite group of mercenaries, calling themselves the U.B.C.S."

Jill's eyes slightly widened at the mention of the group.

"The village you came across was actually a clever smoke screen," Thompson added. "Slightly beyond the village was an Umbrella encampment, made up of their employees who decided to tell their story to the world."

"They thought it was a safe house," Jameson elaborated. "They knocked you out and went in, guns a-blazing."

"And the villagers?" Billy asked.

"Paid civilians in the area," Thompson answered. "By the time you came to, they had enough time to redress the village as if they slaughtered it."

"All that to cover up the death of their employees?" Jill inquired, slight shock in her voice.

"You sound almost surprised," Leon says.

"Anyway, due to this new evidence, Mr. Coen, you are hereby a free man," Jameson said. "You can thank your friend for all this, Mr. Kennedy."

"Go, Ark," Leon said.

"Yes, go, Ark," the agents muttered flatly.

"But unfortunately, we have some bad news," Jameson said, his gaze fell on Leon. "We have another assignment for you."

"What is it?" Leon asked.

"The president daughter has gone missing," Thompson said, slightly depressed. He pulls out a picture of a blonde girl and hands it to Leon.

"Normally, we'd think that she simply decided party in Paris, but we found this at the airport she was supposed to be at," Jameson said, holding up a picture of a man with his head nearly reaching the heels of his feet. "The car turned up, a door missing, floating down a river. Evidence suggests a struggle but we're not sure."

"My mission's to go in and find her, right?" Leon states.

"You got it," Thompson says. "But first, did you find any evidence that suggests this site was taken over by Umbrella?"

Leon slips a vial of blue liquid out of his jacket pocket and hands to one of the agents. "I think you'll find that interesting, but don't open it."

"And there's this," Jill says, indicating the rabbit curled up on her lap.

"You can keep the bunny," Jameson says. "I take it this is the T-Virus?"

Billy, Leon, Jill, and the rabbit nod in unison. Jameson slides the vial in an overhead slot above his head. A short hiss emanated from the compartment, signaling the use of liquid nitrogen.

"We'll have the boys and girls at the lab look at it," Thompson said. His gazed turned to Billy and Jill. "I strongly urge you two not to repeat this information to your friends and family until you hear that his mission was a success."

"Can do," Jill said.

"You got it," Billy replied.

"Mr. Kennedy, you're mission begins tomorrow," explains Jameson. "Good luck."

The group exchanged a round of salutes and the helicopter thundered on.


	32. Epilogue

A hand burst through the thick rock and dirt that once housed a small town in the middle of nowhere. A man in a torn apart black tactical suit emerged shortly afterward. Black veins decorated his exposed forearm and sections of his face like grotesque tattoos. His normally pale skin glowed slightly green but it eventually died out and the veins sunk back into his skin.

Wesker had managed to escape death once again and he didn't have the scars to prove it. He looked to his left and a man wearing a similar uniform, with a gas mask, stood there. He breathed heavily through the mask in a good imitation of Darth Vader.

"Hey, Hunk," Wesker said to the other man. "I take it we need to go."

The mask moved up and down and Wesker brushed himself off. They approached a heavily armored vehicle with bright yellow letters that read "H.C.F."

* * *

Jill Valentine entered her New York City apartment after an exhausting five hour flight from the Phoenix airport. She dropped her keys on her kitchen counter and dropped onto the black leather sofa that faced a Sony 25-inch TV. She had managed to get her Beretta through the security checkpoints, since she still carried her S.T.A.R.S. ID tag, and it was currently digging into her hip. She absently pulled it out of its holster, ejected the remainder of the magazine, popped the bullet of the chamber, and set them down on the oak coffee table before her.

"Another day, another city blown up," she muttered before she fell asleep.

* * *

Billy Coen didn't like flying, and he absolutely hated long flights. He now found himself in a hotel room in Ocean City, Maryland. Rebecca the rabbit watched him from her perch on top of the small room's dresser. Billy examined himself in the mirror, now dressed in a gray muscle shirt and dark denim jeans.

"I think I lost a couple pounds from sweating on that flight," Billy muttered, examining his biceps. "I tell ya, they need to install air conditioners on those things."

Rebecca nodded in understanding. Being cramped into a crate for a five hour flight wasn't that thrilling for her.

"But this is nothin' compared to what Leon had to endure," Billy mutters. "Catching a connecting flight to Europe after a flight from Arizona to D.C. ain't my idea of a good time."

* * *

Leon could barely keep his eyes open as the truck rocked across the uneven terrain. The Spanish cops in the front seat seemed to be talking about him, but he didn't care. After failing Spanish in junior high, the most he could understand was, "Donde esta la biblioteca?"

The truck came to a jarring stop and one of the cops said, "Just up ahead is the village."

"I'll go and take a look around," Leon says, getting out of the car.

"We'll stay and watch the car," the second cop said. "Don't want any parking tickets."

"Right, parking tickets," Leon mutters.

"Good luck," the first cop said in a mocking tone.

"Jeez, who are these guys?" Leon muttered to himself, walking towards a wooden bridge.

"Did you say something?" the first cop called out.

Leon gave a dismissive wave and walked across the bridge. He saw that the ground had indents of where a car was, but it wasn't there any more. Up ahead he spotted a run-down old house.

_Just as good a place to check as any,_ Leon thought.

He knocked on the door, but got no reply. He slowly opened the door and walked in. He looked around and saw a man standing in front of a fire. Leon approached him, his hand taking hold of a photograph.

"Ah, excuse me," Leon says to the man. "Sir? I was wondering if you might recognize the girl in this photograph." He shows the photo of the blonde girl to the man. He gives it a look and began to shout in Spanish. Leon backed away and said, "Sorry to have bothered you."

And before Leon knew it, the man was brandishing an axe and he had drawn his recently acquired handgun from Wesker's Hummer. He took aim and shouted, "Freeze! I said freeze!"

Gunshots ran out through the small house and three more people came out of the woods and surrounded the ramshackle building.


End file.
